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NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

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Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#211

Post by kansface »

DanBlake wrote: post #154

The reason this is a issue (in san francisco, at least) is that long term, elderly and protected tenants are getting evicted from buildings with whats called a 'ellis act'. A ellis act lets you kick everyone out of your building with the restriction that you cannot 're-rent' it for 5 years. Since a 30 day stay is not 'renting' per sf code, unscrupulous landlords have been using BnB sites to profiteer evictions. That…

Yes, but why should anyone who has lived in an apartment for 1 year be entitled to pay that price for life? Why should a resident who has lived in my building for 5 years be entitled to pay 40% of what I do for as long as they care to stay? The current opposite extreme is just as bad.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#212

Post by zem »

greghinch wrote: post #53
untog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define 'efficient'? Is pushing out people who want to live in the city in order to fit more visitors an efficient use of resources? I would argue that it is not.

The free market is deciding what the best use of the space is, in terms of generating revenue and value for all parties involved. That's the power of the sharing economy

only if you treat revenue and value as interchangeable. the value of someone having a stable place they can rent and not fear the landlord will kick them out to run a revolving-door hotel he can squeeze the maximum amount of rent out of is immense, whether or not they can afford to pay as much as the collective influx of transients would.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#213

Post by doughj3 »

cletus wrote: post #62

I've had this argument with several people. Their position is that "it's my house/apartment, I should be able to do what I want with it" (even when renting they use this argument). My argument is that this is not and has never been true. You can't, for example, run a tannery in your apartment. What's more, as a resident (and especially if I were an owner) I wouldn't want my building being a de facto hotel. An endless…

> I believe short stay (If by "always illegal" you mean "since two years ago": http://skift.com/2013/01/07/airbnbs-growing-pains-mirrored-i...

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#214

Post by uptown »

doughj3 wrote: post #213
cletus wrote: post #62

I've had this argument with several people. Their position is that "it's my house/apartment, I should be able to do what I want with it" (even when renting they use this argument). My argument is that this is not and has never been true. You can't, for example, run a tannery in your apartment. What's more, as a resident (and especially if I were an owner) I wouldn't want my building being a de facto hotel. An endless…

> I believe short stay ( If by "always illegal" you mean "since two years ago": http://skift.com/2013/01/07/airbnbs-growing-pains-mirrored-i...

Separate from that law, literally every New York lease I've ever seen has included terms forbidding the rental behavior that AirBNB promotes, and I'd be surprised if the bylaws of every co-op didn't include house rules forbidding this type of activity. Some condos may be more-flexible in their laws - but there's always been a pretty-strong legal framework in-place forbidding re-renting an apartment in this manner.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#215

Post by Variance »

reuven wrote: post #66

I can't say that I'm at all surprised. Moreover, I would expect to see more judges, as well as legislatures, pass such rules. I've discovered (full-disclosure: through consulting work with a site similar to AirBNB) that many vested interests -- typically hotels and real-estate organizations -- don't want such sites to operate. Until and unless the legislators are convinced to change the rules by a popular, grass-root…

> Forbidding short-term rentals, in theory, can increase the pool for annual rentals, thus bringing the cost down.

That's completely contrary to how supply and demand would work--if you forbid short-term rentals you move all the short-term demand into the annual market, increasing annual demand, which drives up prices and causes more scarcity.

Since short-term housing can house multiple people each year and annual housing can house only one per year, each new annual housing unit added will be accompanied by multiple new demanders that were previously in the short-term market and could have been all housed in one year by that apartment as a short-term rental. You increase annual supply by one and increase annual demand by more than one--likely by more than half a dozen--and so prices skyrocket as demand outstrips supply and the shortage is exacerbated.

Of course, city governments are not exactly the gold standard of understanding economics when passing housing laws.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#216

Post by rayiner »

brown9-2 wrote: post #135
dev_jim wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's your own property, go right ahead. Yep, this is the problem with services like AirBnB and Uber. It's embraces a purely selfish attitude in individuals with blatant disregard for the rest of the community.

How does Uber harm the community?

The problem with Uber isn't necessarily, that it harms the community, but that it unfairly competes with the taxi monopoly. Now, your first reaction might be to say "well that's the taxi monopoly's problem" but there is more to it. The taxi monopoly is a bargain struck between municipalities and service providers. The bargain is that taxi cabs get monopoly protection in return for their agreeing to function as an extension of the public transit system. As part of the bargain, taxi companies agree to do things that they wouldn't do in a free market--agree to drop people off anywhere in the city, agree to serve poor neighborhoods, etc. If the municipalities allow Uber to operate without those constraints, they are going back on their end of the bargain.

Maybe the right answer is to end the bargain entirely--buy out the medallions and end the monopoly protection, and let everyone compete on a level playing field. But allowing Uber to ignore taxi regulations while still imposing them on the cab companies is not fair.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#217

Post by stephencanon »

textminer wrote: post #178
stephencanon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently stayed for a few days in an AirBnB room while my wife and I were in New York. A comparably nice hotel room in the same neighborhood would have run us a minimum of $350 a night; the AirBnB room was $110. While I certainly believe that some of the "benefit" of AirBnB comes from not paying for externalities, it stretches logic to believe that those externalities account for $240 a day for two people in one ro…

Isn't that less the externalities than the pool of folks using the existing hotel infrastructure (bending supply/demand) rather than exploring AirBnb/couch surfing/etc. I imagine if business travelers and tourists used AirBnB en masse, the prices would more closely approach that of traditional hotels... But with hosts that're less dependable.

I’m sure there’s a large component of what you say to it, but that suggests that grandparent’s comment:

> the cost of adjusting for the externalities will erase the savings of AirBnB

is false, which is more or less exactly what I’m trying to get at too: it is not unreasonable to expect that AirBnB will continue to be cheaper than hotels even if externalities are priced in.

As for hosts being less dependable, I’m sure that happens, but the few times I’ve used AirBnB, I’ve been quite pleased. By contrast, it seems like more than half the time I check into a hotel, something is amiss or the room isn’t ready by the time it was promised, or ... something. There are exceptional hotels with great customer service, but most hotels are borderline terrible in my experience.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#218

Post by infinite8s »

ahallock wrote: post #204
dragonwriter wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in San Francisco, where airbnb is legal (as far as I know) Its generally not (its illegal in San Francisco to rent a unit for less than thirty days in a residential building with more than four units.) New York and San Francisco are the two US locations that I've seen the most news coverage for AirBnB's legal issues in. > yet my property owner explicitly prohibits "short term subleasing," effectively banning…

So because there is dependence on some monopolistic entity for contract disputes (there really shouldn't be), then that gives justification for that entity to intrude on voluntary actions? Seems like a logical fallacy to me. How about we let people transact peacefully and deal with the problems on a case-by-case basis instead of lumping everyone under the same law that allows no room for exploration.

By monopolistic entity, do you mean society? If you don't want to live by the rules of the society you are in, you are free to withdraw yourself and find somewhere else without such onerous restrictions. Likely you'll find it much worse place to live.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#219

Post by oijaf888 »

FelixP wrote: post #199
oijaf888 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might say that but is that an actual enforceable provision?

Yes, absolutely. My family has evicted tenants from some of our units for repeatedly violating this clause of their leases.

It seems in NYC at least, the landlord can't refuse to let someone sublet so long as they are properly notified and the sublet is reasonable. The way most leases are written though, it makes it sound as if the landlord has the final say vs it defaulting to permitted (with notification) unless the landlord makes a good case why it should be denied.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#220

Post by greghinch »

zem wrote: post #212
greghinch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market is deciding what the best use of the space is, in terms of generating revenue and value for all parties involved. That's the power of the sharing economy

only if you treat revenue and value as interchangeable. the value of someone having a stable place they can rent and not fear the landlord will kick them out to run a revolving-door hotel he can squeeze the maximum amount of rent out of is immense, whether or not they can afford to pay as much as the collective influx of transients would.

But the argument Airbnb makes is not in favor allowing building landlords to evict tenants and run illegal hotels, nor is it mine. The law should be changed to cover only that case. Not be broadly extended to cover the 87% who rent out their own home[1], to make extra personal money on the side.

[1] according to Airbnb, in the article

Edited for formatting

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