4 ms·

It's typical for a young person in Manhattan to pay 3k/mo for a one-bedroom apartment. If a renter takes a four-day weekend to go on vacation, that's: 1) $400

It's typical for a young person in Manhattan to pay 3k/mo for a one-bedroom apartment. If a renter takes a four-day weekend to go on vacation, that's: 1) $400 down the drain for the resident 2) allocative inefficiency of an empty apartment that could otherwise satisfy demand for short-term housing Hotels are the winners in this situation.

ahoy 10y ago
That's not how a lot of AirBnB operations work though. Many of them are effectively hotels.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. The question is, as it often is, about the collateral damage.
JimboOmega 10y ago
I don't know about NYC, but in SF, collection of any sort of hotel tax (or any attempt at following regulation) on these units is a joke. If having hotel taxes and regulations are otherwise a good thing, why should hotel bookings be exempt if they are made through AirBnB? If, instead of building a hotel, somebody rents several units in a building and turns them into perpetual AirBnBs, is that fair? What if they are also rent controlled units that the person is turning an additional profit on? And of course, there are legitimate reasons why you might not want the unit next to yours to be a de-facto hotel. (Having lived next to one, it can be a little frustrating, since every night is party night if you're on vacation!)
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  >in SF, collection of any sort of hotel tax (or any attempt at following regulation) on these units is a joke. This is incorrect. If a user on Airbnb requests a stay that qualifies for a Transient Occupancy Tax, Airbnb collects the tax on the transaction and remits it to the City of San Francisco.
evanelias 10y ago
Most Manhattan buildings are large and have many units. If you rent out your apartment a few times a year, how is this fair to your neighbors, who pay the same rent and never agreed to have a bunch of transient guests in the building? I lived in a Manhattan rental building with a fair amount of AirBNB activity going on -- on any given weekend it seemed like at least one unit on my floor was being rented out. Many of the younger guests were completely obnoxious and disrespectful to common areas. This is an extreme example, but someone even urinated in the stairwell once. And this was a "luxury" building with a well-above-average rental cost. Of course, renting out your place on AirBNB was against the terms of the lease, but it seemed like the management company never enforced this... which makes sense when you consider how hard/expensive it is to prove, and then evict someone, especially when they're a tenant who pays exorbitant rent on time.
- braveo 10y ago
  > Most Manhattan buildings are large and have many units. If you rent out your apartment a few times a year, how is this fair to your neighbors, who pay the same rent and never agreed to have a bunch of transient guests in the building? How is it fair if you let your druggie sibling come live in the house with you for the entirety of your lease? It's a completely bullshit excuse, if the neighbor creates a problem, deal with it. If they don't, then don't. Telling the neighbor what they can and cannot do because you don't like it is not going to be fun when they're allowed to do the same back to you.
  - evanelias 10y ago
    > How is it fair if you let your druggie sibling come live in the house with you for the entirety of your lease? Every NYC lease I've ever signed had a clause forbidding long-term guest stays. Besides, that's a persistent problem, easy and perfectly reasonable to report to management and have them deal with it. In contrast, occasional AirBNB'ing (a few weekends a year per unit, say) is a lot harder to track down. There were 15 units on my floor, and maybe 4 or 5 of them would occasionally do AirBNB rentals. It's not like there was just one unit doing this constantly, which would have been a lot easier to report. I also have to mention, you've now posted 3 different comments mentioning this hypothetical "druggie sibling" scenario. I've personally never encountered that situation, despite living in 7 different apartment buildings in 3 major east coast cities over the past 13 years. I have, however, repeatedly encountered disrespectful AirBNB tenants in multiple buildings. I don't really think these situations are even remotely comparable. There's no web site trying to profit from letting "druggie siblings" live with people, nor is there any major wave of this occurring. > Telling the neighbor what they can and cannot do because you don't like it is not going to be fun when they're allowed to do the same back to you. Well, since I never rented my place on AirBNB, never had long-term guests, and never otherwise broke major lease provisions... I don't really have anything to worry about there do I?
wefarrell 10y ago
If that arrangement were legal and accepted under leases, which it isn't, the value of a lease would appreciate significantly and housing prices would rise accordingly. And what's to stop the landlord from putting that apartment on Airbnb permanently?

ahoy 10y ago

That's not how a lot of AirBnB operations work though. Many of them are effectively hotels.

ethanbond 10y ago
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. The question is, as it often is, about the collateral damage.

JimboOmega 10y ago

I don't know about NYC, but in SF, collection of any sort of hotel tax (or any attempt at following regulation) on these units is a joke. If having hotel taxes and regulations are otherwise a good thing, why should hotel bookings be exempt if they are made through AirBnB? If, instead of building a hotel, somebody rents several units in a building and turns them into perpetual AirBnBs, is that fair? What if they are also rent controlled units that the person is turning an additional profit on? And of course, there are legitimate reasons why you might not want the unit next to yours to be a de-facto hotel. (Having lived next to one, it can be a little frustrating, since every night is party night if you're on vacation!)

DINKDINK 10y ago
>in SF, collection of any sort of hotel tax (or any attempt at following regulation) on these units is a joke. This is incorrect. If a user on Airbnb requests a stay that qualifies for a Transient Occupancy Tax, Airbnb collects the tax on the transaction and remits it to the City of San Francisco.

evanelias 10y ago

Most Manhattan buildings are large and have many units. If you rent out your apartment a few times a year, how is this fair to your neighbors, who pay the same rent and never agreed to have a bunch of transient guests in the building? I lived in a Manhattan rental building with a fair amount of AirBNB activity going on -- on any given weekend it seemed like at least one unit on my floor was being rented out. Many of the younger guests were completely obnoxious and disrespectful to common areas. This is an extreme example, but someone even urinated in the stairwell once. And this was a "luxury" building with a well-above-average rental cost. Of course, renting out your place on AirBNB was against the terms of the lease, but it seemed like the management company never enforced this... which makes sense when you consider how hard/expensive it is to prove, and then evict someone, especially when they're a tenant who pays exorbitant rent on time.

braveo 10y ago
> Most Manhattan buildings are large and have many units. If you rent out your apartment a few times a year, how is this fair to your neighbors, who pay the same rent and never agreed to have a bunch of transient guests in the building? How is it fair if you let your druggie sibling come live in the house with you for the entirety of your lease? It's a completely bullshit excuse, if the neighbor creates a problem, deal with it. If they don't, then don't. Telling the neighbor what they can and cannot do because you don't like it is not going to be fun when they're allowed to do the same back to you.
- evanelias 10y ago
  > How is it fair if you let your druggie sibling come live in the house with you for the entirety of your lease? Every NYC lease I've ever signed had a clause forbidding long-term guest stays. Besides, that's a persistent problem, easy and perfectly reasonable to report to management and have them deal with it. In contrast, occasional AirBNB'ing (a few weekends a year per unit, say) is a lot harder to track down. There were 15 units on my floor, and maybe 4 or 5 of them would occasionally do AirBNB rentals. It's not like there was just one unit doing this constantly, which would have been a lot easier to report. I also have to mention, you've now posted 3 different comments mentioning this hypothetical "druggie sibling" scenario. I've personally never encountered that situation, despite living in 7 different apartment buildings in 3 major east coast cities over the past 13 years. I have, however, repeatedly encountered disrespectful AirBNB tenants in multiple buildings. I don't really think these situations are even remotely comparable. There's no web site trying to profit from letting "druggie siblings" live with people, nor is there any major wave of this occurring. > Telling the neighbor what they can and cannot do because you don't like it is not going to be fun when they're allowed to do the same back to you. Well, since I never rented my place on AirBNB, never had long-term guests, and never otherwise broke major lease provisions... I don't really have anything to worry about there do I?

wefarrell 10y ago

If that arrangement were legal and accepted under leases, which it isn't, the value of a lease would appreciate significantly and housing prices would rise accordingly. And what's to stop the landlord from putting that apartment on Airbnb permanently?