What Airbnb Did to New York City • Hacker News Board

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#101

Post by acomjean » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

WingH wrote: post #40

stevenking86l wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lived in Manhattan for 6 years 2011-2017 in The East Village. Made about half that. 1 roommate. 2 bedroom. Occasionally worked a side job (tutoring) but was for extra cash more than necessity. I was working in the live music industry so I had free access to a lot of live shows around town which allowed me to save money but still do the things that make living in NYC Great. It’s very possible. Was kind to my landlord,…

Tons of people live in the Lower East Side with affordable rent. Think Chinatown, etc. Of course that is not where people usually associate with Manhanttan..

I did a walking tour of the lower east side last year. It was run by the "tenement museum" (which is much more interesting than I expected.).

http://www.tenement.org

It turned into a talk about housing, and housing prices (we had a california developer on the walk and some english people adding perspective).

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#102

Post by kerkeslager » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

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? 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.

There's certainly lots of red tape in NYC construction, but I see zero evidence that there is more red tape with non-luxury construction. This is just a ridiculous HN meme at this point: every problem is caused by regulation and the only tool we're allowed to use to solve problems is incentives. I, for one, am deeply skeptical that making things cheaper for rich people is a good place to look for solutions to the problems of the poor.

More to the point: none of what you've said means that AirBnB isn't to blame for the lack of affordable housing in NYC. NYC housing is a complex market, and a lack of affordable housing has more than one cause. The article presents its evidence why they think AirBnB caused the problem. Simply presenting alternate causes doesn't mean AirBnB isn't a cause, because I think we can agree there is more than one reason that housing prices are high in NYC.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#103

Post by guelo » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #97

bogomipz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"... 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…

Mike Bloomberg was probably the most developer friendly mayor New York has seen in decades. That growth is largely all due to him.

> continuos boom for 20 years

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#104

Post by guelo » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

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-…

Easy to blame a detailed study with tons of data and not my ideological preconceived complaint that I haven't bothered to look up the data on.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#105

Post by true_religion » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

amorphid wrote: post #88

murph-almighty wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why so? Here Grandma owns the house, but in the other situation she doesn't own the apartment, the landlord does.

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?

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#106

Post by dgudkov » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

AirBnb not just hikes rent prices, it hikes real estate prices as well because it is a way to offset mortgage payments. It effectively brings down mortgage interest rate. Have some free money? Get a mortgage and put the property on AirBnb. We know what happens when this type of thinking scales out.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#107

Post by busterarm » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #63

ohgodmorecow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"upon completing the work, rented the place out for $2,900/month." Oh my god, how is it possible for anyone to pay that much? 2800$ is about the general income / month here.

To be fair the potential to earn a high salary is much higher in NYC than many other places. All those huge towers are full of executives, VP's and highly skilled workers. There are many hundreds of thousands of people making 6-figure salaries here and tens of thousands making over a million. However, many people in NYC do not make big money and it comes down to living further away from Manhattan and having roommates…

Actually, a pretty significant portion of the luxury development is purchased by non-residents as a place to park their money. This makes up a high percentage of AirBNBs here.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#108

Post by JBReefer » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

nugi wrote: post #51

JBReefer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that had a good one, you do anything you can to hold onto them. 1% yearly increases in a gentrifying neighborhood is awesome

And pushing up prices for the rest of the neighborhood. You have a good deal, but you are exactly the problem. Not sure you can complain about what you are bragging about contributing to.

I'm saying that it's something you don't give up if you don't have to - I own my apartment now. Thanks for assuming, though.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#109

Post by notfromhere » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

devit wrote: post #64

peg_leg wrote: post #11

Air BnB is terrible for smaller, more touristy towns as well, like Traverse City, MI where housing prices and rents have skyrocketed. Used to be able to rent a granny flat as a service worker...those are all Air BnB'd now.

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

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#110

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Mar 08, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

teh_klev wrote: post #19

humanrebar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to point out that expensive rent in a rural area is different than expensive rent in an urban one. In a rural area, if it really comes down to it, people buy or rent a plot of land and throw a prefab home or trailer on it. In an urban area, you don't have a lot of options when rent goes up other than moving to a dangerous neighborhood or commuting from an inhumane distance.

> expensive rent in a rural area is different than expensive rent in an urban one I fail to see the difference, maybe you could expand? > In a rural area, if it really comes down to it, people buy Folks are seeking affordable rents because affordable (and habitable) property to buy is pretty much non-existent. > or rent a plot of land and throw a prefab home or trailer on it. Perhaps in your country, good luck with g…

We have Irish Travellers in the US, too, you know. They mainly stick to the east coast. Local police will publish warnings when they're coming through. They are likely the primary motivator for anti-caravan laws, the other being that caravans and trailer homes generally have negative curb appeal and depress nearby property values.

But "rural" in the US and "rural" in the UK are orders of magnitude apart. There are individual ranches in Texas larger than whole counties in the UK. The kinds of nomadic people that provoke anti-camping laws require a certain population density to support their lifestyle, so in the US, it's usually the NIMBYs that try to ban certain kinds of dwellings on other people's land. It's a question of how many people would even know something is there. If you never even see your mail carrier, you're not going to have a problem erecting any sort of building you want. But if you have neighbors that can see your dwelling from theirs, they will be interested in your private business.

So if you're in the middle of the wind farms and corn farms in northern Indiana, no one cares if you have a manufactured home on your land. If you're on undeveloped land just east of Denver, you can't even pitch a tent on your own property without a permit.