Airbnb Ban Bad for NYC … According to Airbnb
By Abigail Nehring September 3, 2024 5:14 pm
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Airbnb still won’t take “no” for an answer in New York City.
A year after the short-term vacation rental company effectively became persona non grata in the nation’s biggest housing market, Airbnb resurrected its fight against legislation that aimed to curb the platform with a new set of criticisms laid out in a blog post published Tuesday on the company’s website.
Airbnb doesn’t think New York City’s Local Law 18, which went into effect last year, accomplished lawmakers’ goals of bringing more housing supply back in the market and lowering rents. Plus it argued the law drove up hotel room prices to unaffordable levels.
“Regulators promised that banning Airbnb in New York City would unlock housing,” the company wrote. “Instead, rent climbed 3.4 percent during the first 11 months of the law.”
The 2022 legislation requires short-term rental hosts to register with the city as landlords — effectively dismantling the peer-to-peer business model that fueled Airbnb’s expansion across the country since its founding in 2007.
The goal was to reduce Airbnb’s strain on the supply side of the city’s housing market by making sure its stock is actually being used to house New Yorkers, which in turn would lower rent in the city, local lawmakers argued.
But Airbnb argued the ban has actually made New York City’s housing crisis worse. Airbnb reached that conclusion after comparing the median rent and vacancy rate in major cities around the country using data from StreetEasy.
While rental prices are cooling slightly around the country, “New York remains out of step with other major cities,” the company wrote.
And the same goes for the city’s hotel market, which saw average room rates rise 7.4 percent over the past year, Airbnb noted, citing CoStar (CSGP) data.
The new analysis echoes arguments the Silicon Valley startup has made before, including in a lawsuit against the law that a judge dismissed last year.
A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the arguments Airbnb laid out in the blog post, but the mayor still backs the city’s policy a year later.
“The implementation of the registration law led to a massive reduction in illegal short-term rental listings,” Christian Klossner, the executive director of The Office of Special Enforcement tasked with managing the short-term rental database, told Skift. “[The law] has effectively prevented the misuse of thousands of permanent housing units from illegal short-term rentals.”
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
