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New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

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Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#31

Post by modeless »

fmora wrote: post #13

The first time I read about something like this I was outraged. "How dare they, the government is blocking people's ability to do business". Then, after some careful thought I started to agree with this ban. Basically I put myself in the shoes of a resident next to a building being used as an illegal hotel. The people do not have the proper permits. Obviously they are not licensed. The fact that there is always new p…

This is a pet peeve of mine: when arguing about whether something should be legal, its current legality is irrelevant. Pointing out how illegal, unlicensed, etc these places are does not work as an argument against legalizing them, or as an argument for making them "more illegal". Stick to the factual arguments about crime, taxes, etc, because that's what the decision should be based on.

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#32

Post by ataggart »

uuilly wrote: post #12

Economics: The study of the distribution of scarce resources with alternative uses. It would be great if more people knew that.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#33

Post by whakojacko »

nphase wrote: post #19
fmora wrote: post #13

The first time I read about something like this I was outraged. "How dare they, the government is blocking people's ability to do business". Then, after some careful thought I started to agree with this ban. Basically I put myself in the shoes of a resident next to a building being used as an illegal hotel. The people do not have the proper permits. Obviously they are not licensed. The fact that there is always new p…

I have no idea what the breakdown of tax allocation looks like in NYC/NY state, but I'm not sure your last statement is correct. I assume the person doing this illegal business is still paying property tax and state income tax? If not, then that's a problem with the IRS, not a housing authority.

I highly doubt they are paying state income tax on income received from renting. Or occupancy tax, for that matter.

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#34

Post by jim_h »

fmora wrote: post #23
shykes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing one important point: most people affected by this ban are individuals, renting out one room at a time, maybe two. I have a hard time believing this generates any kind of noticeable "coming and going". In fact, tolerating the rental of a single room per household strikes me as a good way of separating the wheat from the chaff. Ironically, even Cuba has such an exception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca…

I also see this as a problem though. Most likely the person doing this is not the owner of the apartment. I wonder how the original landlords feel about this. Maybe they just don't care, who knows. Seems wrong to be using their apartment for this when they never agreed to it.

The landlord can probably kick them out for having extra people living there that's not on the lease or for breaking something in the lease. (My parents are also landlords, though not in NYC.)

Of the places I've been in, the landlord knew about it and didn't care (not noisy or dirty), or it wasn't active enough to cause anybody to notice.

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#35

Post by diziet »

A startup like AirBnB worked to increase ease of entry into the market. Outlawing it is simply protectionism of an industry that simply isn't staying as competitive as many smaller entities organized by a technology. Let's pass a law limiting holding time of tbonds to at least 30 days, shall we?

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#36

Post by araneae »

jim_h wrote: post #5

That's one way to make NYC even less affordable and friendly to tourists on a budget. I've met some very interesting and friendly people in 'short-term apartments'. Mostly foreign students/travelers on vacation, people moving to NYC for work and using it as temporary housing until they find a real place, or just regular Americans visiting another city on a budget. They make it seem like these places are unclean or un…

Well, the one I stayed in had a lot of cats, but it certainly wasn't dirty. It was actually pretty awesome. The lady who was running it was using the revenue to rescue cats from NYC overrun animal shelters, where cats maybe last 3 days before getting euthanized for space issues.

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#37

Post by [deleted] »

fmora wrote: post #13

The first time I read about something like this I was outraged. "How dare they, the government is blocking people's ability to do business". Then, after some careful thought I started to agree with this ban. Basically I put myself in the shoes of a resident next to a building being used as an illegal hotel. The people do not have the proper permits. Obviously they are not licensed. The fact that there is always new p…

[deleted]

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#39

Post by earl »

diziet wrote: post #35

A startup like AirBnB worked to increase ease of entry into the market. Outlawing it is simply protectionism of an industry that simply isn't staying as competitive as many smaller entities organized by a technology. Let's pass a law limiting holding time of tbonds to at least 30 days, shall we?

Or people who live in the most dense housing in the US deciding they don't want randoms, particularly people from out of the city who often aren't aware of just how loud they are, frequently moving in and out as neighbors. As a former and future resident of NYC and current resident of SF, I'd hate to live next to such a place. I did until recently in SF and it sucked.

Re: New York governor approves short-term apartment rental ban in NYC

#40

Post by [deleted] »

nphase wrote: post #15

I was in NYC with my team this past Jan, trying to raise money with a few angels in the area. The three of us decided to rent a furnished apartment to save money. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of space this decision afforded. There was plenty of desk space in the unit and while there weren't enough beds for each of us the couches made due just fine. The landlord explained that they were having trouble leas…

[deleted]
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