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What Airbnb Did to New York City

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Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#171

Post by ensignavenger »

lr4444lr wrote: post #38
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-…

Yes, but AirBnB poses a completely different kind of threat. If it's allowed to operate with impunity and turn the entire residential housing market into de-facto hotels, then landlords are going to start to ask why they should put up with tenants acting as their middlemen who reap all of the profit, tenants who are protected by strict and very generous regulations that make eviction and raising the rent difficult in…

Maybe extend the a hassle of tenant law to short term rentals? Or eliminate some of the hassle, if it is unnecessary. But even without any changes, there is only so much of a market for short term rentals. At some point, the market will balance out, so long as supply is not artificially constrained.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#172

Post by exolymph »

kerkeslager wrote: post #136
ordinaryperson wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you're saying that affordable housing is preventing housing from being affordable? LOL. I think you're conflating 2 types of 'affordable housing.' People say 'affordable housing' when they mean 'government legally forcing landlords to underprice their units' versus what the term should actually mean, 'a reasonable price range of rents'. > there's certainly lots of red tape in NYC construction, but I see zero evi…

> People say 'affordable housing' when they mean 'government legally forcing landlords to underprice their units' versus what the term should actually mean, 'a reasonable price range of rents'. Huh? No, "affordable housing" means "rents people can pay" (an extreme example being a $250/month apartment). This isn't complicated. > There isn't necessarily more but there should be less to incentivize builders. No point in…

> I realize I'm being hostile here, but your viewpoint is hostile to the poor and homeless of NYC.

I recognize that you feel passionate about this issue, but hostility is counterproductive in this kind of discussion. https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/2016/05/hostility-online-disc...

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#173

Post by pc86 »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #167
true_religion wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Apartment rental is explicitly not a sale. We should probably keep talking about the same thing and not keep moving the goalposts to suit our argument.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#174

Post by pc86 »

mjcl wrote: post #150
true_religion wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an NDA a lifetime contract?

I have never seen (and certainly have never signed) an NDA that covers an indefinite period of time.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#175

Post by smogcutter »

lmm wrote: post #117
teh_klev wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. AirBNB is a blight on rural areas (I can speak to this because I reside in rural Scotland) where affordable rental properties are simply disappearing from the market. 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 fol…

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?

Yes.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#176

Post by ghaff »

swarnie_ wrote: post #37
TomV1971 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last month I stayed a weekend at the Salisbury hotel right across Carnegie Hall for $180 per night. Nothing fancy, but a surprisingly big room at a prime location.

I stayed in this hotel in 2005. Is the constant sound of car horns 24 hours a day caused by the area or is that all of Manhattan?

That's pretty normal throughout much of Manhattan. Depending upon how they face and how high you are some rooms will be quieter than others. But, yeah, much of Manhattan is a pretty noisy city.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#177

Post by pc86 »

amorphid wrote: post #73
pc86 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get not throwing grandma out of the $250/month 4BR she’s been living in for 50 years Sorry, but not when the 2BR across the hall is renting for $4,000/mo and is on the market for 4 hours before someone gets it. Grandma doesn't have a right to live in the exact same apartment for the rest of her life at the expense of everyone else.

To me, that's like saying grandma doesn't deserve to keep $2 million house she bought many years ago for $20 thousand because someone with $2 million wants her property.

And to people who view "sale" and "rent" as interchangeable, that might make some sense. A better argument might have been to go the property tax route but that's still not very convincing.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#178

Post by ghaff »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #125
ghaff wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And add about 25% in taxes to that. Plus I can assure you that barring unusual circumstances cheap hotels (and $200 isn't exactly "cheap" in my book) in Manhattan are probably best avoided. Mind you, in my experience as a business traveler, hotel prices in San Francisco are often higher than Manhattan in any case.

I just stayed in a Fairfield Inn & Suites on 58th last month for 4 nights (including Friday / Saturday) at $590 total ($147.50 per night). It wasn't luxury by any means, but it was perfectly nice. Also, the taxes were $90 of that, so 15%, not 25%.

Fair enough. This is probably sort of an off-season (to the degree there is such a thing) for Manhattan and I tend to stay in somewhat more expensive hotels. (And there are a lot of real fleabags at the lower end but I wouldn't expect a Marriott brand to be one.) Of course it varies depending upon what's going on in a given week, but I find it's harder to get a "deal" in SF, among other cities.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#179

Post by teh_klev »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #164
teh_klev wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Not sure if being a wee bit obtuse or I failed at detecting a smidgen of humour there.

Assuming you mean AirBNB lets, so of course not all my neighbours are renting out their homes as holiday lets.

If not, then why wouldn't medium to long term tenants also appreciate their village and local surroundings.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#180

Post by lewis500 »

eric_h wrote: post #162
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...

It does not matter what particular country produces one one's steel. What matters is the price of steel. US mills will be able to charge higher prices, so the cost of NYC construction will rise; although in the short run builders have probably locked into certain contracts. That is the whole point of the tariffs: to raise steel prices.
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