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What Airbnb Did to New York City

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Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#161

Post by Nelkins »

bogomipz wrote: post #74
ordinaryperson wrote: post #6

Easy to blame lack of affordable housing on AirBnB and not, say, rent control laws or the difficulty of building new housing stock in the city. I get not throwing grandma out of the $250/month 4BR she’s been living in for 50 years, but it means something like 200,000 rent-controlled/rent-stabilized units are also raising everyone else’s rent by decreasing inventory. The endless red tape in new construction makes non-…

>"... or the difficulty of building new housing stock in the city." What difficulty? I'm guessing you haven't visited NYC in quite some tie. New York City has experienced an almost continuous building boom for the last 20 years. See the NYC Construction Dashboard: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/html/dob-development-re... Note the the graph for "NYC Employment: Construction of Buildings (2000 - 2016)" >"The endl…

That dashboard is misleading. NYC has one of the lowest rates of building permits per population of any area in the US[0]. We're building more, but the population is growing as well. Supply is not able to meet demand.

[0] https://www.renthop.com/studies/national/heres-why-rents-are...

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#162

Post by eric_h »

lewis500 wrote: post #47

This is not quite Pareto distributed but it's getting there: "half of all Airbnb rentals that are conducted by only 10 percent of hosts, who earned a full 48 percent of all the revenue earned in the city last year. That’s some 5,000-people earning a combined $318 million. In contrast, the bottom 80 percent of New York’s hosts—the city’s 40,400 true home sharers—earned just 32 percent of all revenue, or $209 million,…

> sure to get worse thanks to Trump's tariffs on steel, aluminum and canadian timber.

this[1] suggests that most New York City construction uses US steel and will be minimally affected by Trump's policy. Admittedly, basically all new construction is concrete and steel so it will undoubtedly be affected in some way by changes in the steel market.

1) http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180306/REAL_ESTATE/18...

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#163

Post by srtjstjsj »

bradleyjg wrote: post #159
somberi wrote: post #132

As an apartment owner in Manhattan, I find one part of the study surprising. Most Co-ops and Condos (two types of apartment financial structuring that is common in NYC), explicitly ban AirBnB rental. The apartment I own, in a fancy part of the city (Upper East Side), penalises the owner $350 for first infraction, and the fines escalate for each subsequent infraction. Most Co-ops even prohibit non-owners living in the…

Why would you think people willing to violate state law would have any scruples about violating a propriety lease or condo agreement?

Because state law enforcement is weak but it's easy for neighbors to rat you out to management

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#164

Post by srtjstjsj »

teh_klev wrote: post #154
lmm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the price has gone up so much, there's a financial incentive to build more until supply matches demand and prices drop to previous levels. > These properties are barely fully booked during the summer months or holiday/peak seasons, and are empty for weeks at a time in the winter and off-seasons. > This is such a waste and hugely frustrating for folks who live and work in these communities trying to find accomodati…

> Is it really so implausible that for a house in a scenic rural area, a succession of people renting it for a week or two each over the summer might end up getting more out of it (between them) than someone wanting to live and work in it for a whole year? Are you really suggesting that just because you live and work in your local (scenic) rural community you couldn't possibly enjoy the surroundings just as much, if…

> s residents, we're quite proud of our village

Obviously not, if all your neighbors are renting out their homes

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#165

Post by srtjstjsj »

Spooky23 wrote: post #112
phil21 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing structures don't (rarely) appreciate. In fact the opposite is true, as witnessed by my tax return each year. The land as you state is a different story. I love the idea of a disposable trailer home I could replace every 20-30 years with new technology, unfortunately due to social attitudes prefab homes are almost exclusively marketed and built for lower incomes.

Houses appreciate. Trailers do not. Trailers are like cars. Sorry my comment was ambiguous

Houses depreciate. Land appreciates

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#166

Post by srtjstjsj »

Spooky23 wrote: post #114
randomdata wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always exceptions, but houses generally do not appreciate. Much like a car, they become outdated and wear out. With enough time and use, they even become completely uninhabitable. Each passing day sees less and less value in the home as it requires more and more cost to bring back up to pristine condition and costs start to compete with the value of a brand new home. Of course, if you keep your home in good…

Sorry, that’s just incorrect. Most value of residential property is in the structure. $/sqft of space is the metric, not the land plot.

The metric is an obsolete simplification, not the actual market.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#167

Post by srtjstjsj »

true_religion wrote: post #105
amorphid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the landlord knew exactly what they were doing when they rented the apartment to Grandma. If the landlord didn't want to enter into a contract the involving rent control, they shouldn't have been in the business of renting NYC apartments.

Contract law usually doesn't allow for lifetime contracts because people can't consider such a long timespan logically. Rent control is the same thing. It forces a contract with on going payments and services with no end date. Is there any escape clause?

Isn't a sale a lifetime contract?

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#168

Post by srtjstjsj »

notfromhere wrote: post #109
devit wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a good thing economically. Imagine there's a place on Earth that is somehow truly amazing and fills you with happiness for a long time for just visiting it. Obviously, it makes sense to have as many different people as possible be able to appreciate it, which requires having them visit only one or a few nights. Clearly, people should not be able to monopolize a flat there for 365 days a year, and if they d…

cities aren't tourist destinations, people live and work there. skyrocketing rent just so tourists can frolic is a disservice to the people who live there day-to-day

PP's "service worker" job won't exist long without people to provide service to. Frolicking tourists sustain your economy.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#169

Post by srtjstjsj »

ironjunkie wrote: post #9
ForHackernews wrote: post #2

Manhattan should probably just admit that it's going to become the Venice of America: a playground for tourists and the ultra-rich, with virtually no residents. There's nothing wrong with that. They can tax the hell out of it and use it to fund services in the rest of the city where real people live.

Kind of agree with you. Don't even think living in Manhattan if you don't pull at least 150k$. (Or be ready for some of those roomshare situations). I'm also amazed by the average night price at Manhattan hotels. Even during normal weeks, the cheapest is well above 300$/night.

Manhattan is terrible; It's so expensive and crowded that no one can afford to live there or visit.

Wait a second....

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#170

Post by exolymph »

kerkeslager wrote: post #102
ordinaryperson wrote: post #6

Easy to blame lack of affordable housing on AirBnB and not, say, rent control laws or the difficulty of building new housing stock in the city. I get not throwing grandma out of the $250/month 4BR she’s been living in for 50 years, but it means something like 200,000 rent-controlled/rent-stabilized units are also raising everyone else’s rent by decreasing inventory. The endless red tape in new construction makes non-…

> I get not throwing grandma out of the $250/month 4BR she’s been living in for 50 years, but it means something like 200,000 rent-controlled/rent-stabilized units are also raising everyone else’s rent by decreasing inventory. So you're saying that affordable housing is preventing housing from being affordable? LOL. > The endless red tape in new construction makes non-luxury bulidings unprofitable. Want cheaper rents…

>> The endless red tape in new construction makes non-luxury bulidings unprofitable. Want cheaper rents? Fast-track approval for new apt buildings.

> Luxury buildings are more profitable because rooms are more spacious (literally requires less construction), you need to make fewer sales to make the same revenue (in a 10 story building you sell 40 condos instead of 80) and buyers are more financially stable (each sale is easier). Removing red tape has nothing to do with that.

You're misunderstanding the GP's point. They're saying that heightened building costs make it irrational to choose to build lower-margin projects like non-luxury housing, because you don't have the margin to absorb those costs.

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