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What Airbnb Did to New York City

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Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect that apartments in NYC will be available for mere mortals? There's 7 bln people on the planet and let's say 1% of them would move in if prices were affordable. It's an alpha plus plus city, only two of these, both biting expensive.

NYC is our city. It's for everyone. If the wealth is too concentrated there, split it up. You'd want to turn my hometown into some kind of apartheid disneyland for the rich.

So because of the accident of your birth, you have more right to live there than I do? I worked hard (and was fortunate in various ways and was supported by the social system) to earn what I have, but my money isn't good enough?

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#112
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nooo. Trailers are the country ghetto. Unlike houses they are depreciating assets. So if you are fortunate enough to own your land and dwelling, unlike a home the value curve trends towards zero. The land value is the only asset, and doesn’t build much wealth. Expensive rent in a rural area means people get pushed further away. In the medical practice that my mom worked at, employees commuted as far as 100 miles.

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

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#113

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…

> 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 evidence that there is more red tape with non-luxury construction.

There isn't necessarily more but there should be less to incentivize builders. No point in going through all the bureaucracy if your margins are going to be super low.

> Simply presenting alternate causes doesn't mean AirBnB isn't a cause

It's a factor, for sure. I'm not defending Airbnb as a nonentity, my point is that it's easy to blame Airbnb because they're a new player whereas academics and state politicians seem less enthused about taking a cold, hard look at housing laws, while well-intentioned at protecting low-income renters, probably play a far larger role in increasing housing costs.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nooo. Trailers are the country ghetto. Unlike houses they are depreciating assets. So if you are fortunate enough to own your land and dwelling, unlike a home the value curve trends towards zero. The land value is the only asset, and doesn’t build much wealth. Expensive rent in a rural area means people get pushed further away. In the medical practice that my mom worked at, employees commuted as far as 100 miles.

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.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The density of NY is the cause of the high costs of living, making it even denser is unlikely to bring costs down long term. It would make more sense just to accept that living centrally is a luxury not everyone can afford, and instead channel the revenue away from the rent-seekers and into the hands of the public (i.e. by increasing property taxes).

From Crown Heights and Bed Stuy (two of the neighborhoods singled out in the article) it's about a 45-60 minute commute into Manhattan via the subway -- not exactly "living centrally." Are people supposed to live 2 hours out? > instead channel the revenue away from the rent-seekers and into the hands of the public (i.e. by increasing property taxes) Good luck getting that passed. And while I'm in favor of higher taxe…

They aren't that far out (especially when the subway ran in a more timely fashion).

My commute from Nostrand to lower Manhattan was under 30 minutes even including the 10 minute walk to the subway. That's exactly why that area is gentrifying.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#116

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…

The problem is much deeper than Airbnb. As a 27 year NYer, I appreciate the shake-up caused by Airbnb. Landlords of market rate apartments can charge whatever they want for a security deposit, so we now get landlords asking 6 months to a year of up-front security on a 2000-plus rental AND then asking for 1st and last months' rent on top of all that. This effectively turns renters into owners without the benefits of being owners. (i.e. they can't legally rent out their apartment on Airbnb at all without the landlords' consent- and the landlord will NEVER consent to even a 30 day+ sublet. Even if they do rent out their place legally on AIrbnb, an Airbnb guest can squat after 29 days,a nd the actual resident would have to take them to court to get them evicted- this is a very long process, meanwhile...) Yes, there are so-called tenant protecting laws, but it is very very difficult to get these laws enforced (basic repairs needed, mold mitigated, Certificate of Occupancy registered, leaks fixed, water provided, fire code observed, electrical emergencies addressed, and on and on) So these landlords get away with stealing from tenants, making their lives a living hell, making the tenants pay for common area heating bills when the LL chooses to use very expensive electric units without insulating the building.

Airbnb is drawing attention to these legal issues, because now, the city has to pretend it cares about legality and enforcement since the power structure has shifted under Airbnb. This seems healthy to me. Our Housing Court in NYC is a joke. On the one had, it allows tenants to represent themselves, which is actually easy to do since it operates more like a community high school principal's office. On the other hand, housing court is a slow, slow process- it is ineffective at providing timely relief to abused tenants, and entirely ineffective at helping with certain types of landlord perpetrated swindling/lying/harassment that's rampant in NYC. The reason it is ineffective for this, is that these issues aren't handled by housing court.(for example if a landlord is rerouting the heating system so that tenants pay for the heating of common areas--a landlord responsibility--that is costing each tenant on average an extra $200 a month-- these tenants can't address this issue in housing court, because housing court doesn't handle this problem. They can't represent themselves. In order for the court to order an inspection by the electric company, these tenants must hire an attorney on retainer in order to force that inspection- otherwise, the landlord will not allow the electric company to inspect.) I'm happy that Airbnb is calling the city's bluff. Hopefully, it will challenge the city to beef up its legal system in all ways. Currently, the landlords are the ones favored by the city, while the tenants are the ones "favored" on unenforceable paper.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#117
post #8

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'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 accomodation.

A lot of people get a lot of joy out of holidaying somewhere like Scotland in the summer. When there are limited houses and a lot of people who want to use them, there will always be winners and losers. 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?

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are always exceptions, but houses generally do not appreciate. Much like a car, they become outdated and wear out. Erm....have you seen what the property market is like in the UK. Most, if not all, property appreciates with little or no major expenditure.

In saying property you're presumably looking at the land value combined with the remaining value of the structure, not the value of structure alone? Typically they are not separate line items in a sale even though if you did separate them you would see that the land is generally appreciating and the house generally depreciating. There are exceptions. Markets can do funny things from time to time, form irrational bubb…

In the UK buyers generally just see the structure and pay for what they think its worth, they tend not to think about the land (and whatever value it might also have) it sits on. Perhaps the exception to this would be garden size if the property isn't a flat (apartment).

The reason for this is that it's pretty damned difficult to separate the two, especially physically. Planning laws generally discourage complete demolition of dwellings unless they're pretty much near collapse or there's been a fire that's gutted the place or in more extreme circumstances perhaps all or part of the house has fallen into a sink hole.

In the UK, residential property (the structure bit) is, and has for a long time now been seen as an appreciating asset/investment. As I already said earlier, property here, if lived in and sensibly maintained, isn't considered something that "wears out" like a car body.

It sounds like you're not from the UK so maybe all this is an alien concept.

Edit: I forgot to mention that things get a wee bit more complex, especially in England and Wales because whilst you might own the structure, it's quite common that don't own the land it sits on. This is known as a leasehold, as opposed to a freehold where you the purchaser own the land as well as the building. Buyers of properties that are leasehold purchase their dwelling (typically with a mortgage) but also pay an annual ground rent to the leaseholder by way of a very long term lease (say 99+ years). Once upon a time the ground rent on the lease hold used to be a nominal amount of money, say GBP100/year. However...capitalism being capitalism, it's becoming more common for leasehold ground rent to be seen by certain investment houses as a nifty way of getting paid for doing bugger all. This can and has caused annual ground rents to increase to quite piss-taking levels.

There are some attempts to get parliament to reform this leasehold situation after it was found that new-build housing estates were being sold to buyers on a leasehold basis but the leasehold condition is not made clear to purchasers. It's sneaky, and another way for house builders to extract another bundle of cash by selling off new-build estate leaseholds to some offshored company for a tidy sum leaving the buyers high and dry. It's often possible to buy out the leasehold, but even in the first year of ownership the cost can be prohibitive, especially after shelling out for your new house. It's not unheard of for leaseholders to charge say GBP5000-7000 in the first year and then double the cost each year afterwards, often locking buyers into the leasehold until they're able to sell the property. Then there's also problems and costs associated with renewing a leasehold, but that's a whole other expensive and morale sapping thing.

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#119

If anyone is interested, I recommend the nearly 18-hr PBS documentary on New York City [1], especially the latter parts (6 & 7) which focus on the building boom and the obsessions of Robert Moses [2]. Part 7 in particular (57 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaLSRTNT5fw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York:_A_Documentary_Film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses

Thank you for the link!

Re: What Airbnb Did to New York City

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nooo. Trailers are the country ghetto. Unlike houses they are depreciating assets. So if you are fortunate enough to own your land and dwelling, unlike a home the value curve trends towards zero. The land value is the only asset, and doesn’t build much wealth. Expensive rent in a rural area means people get pushed further away. In the medical practice that my mom worked at, employees commuted as far as 100 miles.

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…

Maybe we should build/design houses more like commercial construction. Build the structural components of the house to last a long, calculated amount of time, then build the other pieces with the expectation that they'll be modified to keep the usability current.
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