31–40 of 85 posts
Interesting comment on related article by NYT that offers some insight into what type of behavior this bill may be aimed at curbing ... http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/bill-could-make...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. The NYC real estate market is an absolute nightmare in so many ways. Right now it seems most akin to the DeBeers control over the diamond market (ie: an industry based on false scarcity).
No, I think apartments really are scarce. It's not like landlords are sitting on vast quantities of inventory to drive up rents. That said, rent regulation (mostly rent stabilization vs. rent control, these days) does skew the market, creating a small number of lottery winners lucky to have below-market rents and driving up rents for everyone else competing for the unregulated inventory, regardless of their economic…
The prices are pulled out of thin air. The new developments have to charge usurious rents to recoup their costs, but a lot of individual owners bought their building outright in the 80s for peanuts and just charge whatever they think they can get. Any old building in the LES or east village is basically a mint for the owner.
There may be a shortage of affordable, nice apartments in places where people want to live. Good luck finding a nice place for < $2000 in the LES. However, there is no shortage of expensive, crappy apartments in "uncool" parts of the city. In a weird twist of reality it's now easier to find a good deal in the UES than it is in the LES...
Last week I rented a room for a week through airbnb.com at a place that is basically running a commercial hotel operation (as an aside, the place was great) while apartment hunting in NYC. While there, my girlfriend dug up a bunch of stories about the neighbors complaining about condo unit owners leasing out units to this place. I can understand both sides of the argument; if I'd just bought a condo in a building I w…
Someone threatening your business model? They're not innovators, they're criminals!
Home cooking is killing the restaurant industry.
Yes getting legislation on your side and suing people will completely undo fundamental shifts that are happening in the real world. NOT. Hotel Chains should be the ones at the front coming up with services like airbnb or integrating them. The hotel brand can offer as a front to loosely federated room providers and the hotel steps in by doing quality control and enforcing standards. In fact people in the hotel industr…
Interesting comment on related article by NYT that offers some insight into what type of behavior this bill may be aimed at curbing ... http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/bill-could-make...
It was a way better experience than using a hotel. He actually double booked the room for a couple of the days, so he gave us a different apartment in Manhattan for those days. We ended up getting to experience more neighborhoods on a deeper level than we would have otherwise. You could always split a trip between two normal hotels, but they usually aren't in actual neighborhoods.
Making this illegal is dumb, and it reeks of wholesale purchasing of legislation.
I'm mostly interested that this doesn't touch on the more basic issue: AirBNB is illegal not only due to short term hotel law, but also due to sublease law in NYC. You CANNOT sublet an apartment for more than it is worth in New York. I've met and heard of more than a few people who rent apartments and use AirBNB as a primary source of (as OP points out, untaxed) income. I'm surprised NYC landlords aren't more up in a…
Me too. I run a vacation rental site and many property owners in the VR community are not happy with AirBNB.
It's not because they don't want the competition. They are all used to competing with other properties in their area. It's because they want a level playing field.
Many areas require vacation rentals to be licensed and/or charge a tax on their rental fees. These VR owners don't like competing with AirBNB room owners because the VR owners presume - rightly or wrongly - that the AirBNB room owners are not properly licensed or collecting the appropriate taxes.
I think AirBNB is a great idea and this proposed NY law goes way too far. They shouldn't be legislating innovative ideas like this out of existence. They should be finding ways to equitably welcome the AirBNB model into the existing fold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also amazed that neighborhood groups have "Illegal Hotels Committee"s NYC is close quarters. It's not necessarily cool to have a different set of partying neighbors every day of the week.
Yeah, our neighbor pretty blatantly runs an illegal hotel out of her house in Brooklyn. Usually it's fine but she often has young, European guests who like to party in her backyard (about 10 feet from our bedroom window) until 6am. Luckily this is reserved for weekend evenings (most days) so we don't complain; though if it got out of hand, it might be nice to have some alternative to (almost never enforced) noise ord…
I'm mostly interested that this doesn't touch on the more basic issue: AirBNB is illegal not only due to short term hotel law, but also due to sublease law in NYC. You CANNOT sublet an apartment for more than it is worth in New York. I've met and heard of more than a few people who rent apartments and use AirBNB as a primary source of (as OP points out, untaxed) income. I'm surprised NYC landlords aren't more up in a…
NYC is scam central when it comes to subleasing and renting out rooms. There are tons of people in rent controlled apartments who have no moral qualms about making a buck off of their sublettor or roommate. Another reason AirBNB is interesting because they are making it obvious who these people are and where they live...
Last week I rented a room for a week through airbnb.com at a place that is basically running a commercial hotel operation (as an aside, the place was great) while apartment hunting in NYC. While there, my girlfriend dug up a bunch of stories about the neighbors complaining about condo unit owners leasing out units to this place. I can understand both sides of the argument; if I'd just bought a condo in a building I w…
Having a steady stream of noisy neighbours is no different from having one. The solution is the same; hold whoever rents the apartment accountable. (This would be easier if throwing people out was.)