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These issues arise anytime you have rent control and units with a large disparity between the legally-allowed rent and the market rate rent. Some tenants will w

These issues arise anytime you have rent control and units with a large disparity between the legally-allowed rent and the market rate rent. Some tenants will want to capture that value (e.g., by subletting to a market rate tenant and living somewhere else).

shagie 3y ago
Yep, except now it's all of NYC that has the "property owner on the hook for any short term rentals". Rough math... let's say a doorman costs $200/day ($70k/year). 20 units in the building. This would amount to $10/day/unit and thus a rent increase of $300/month for everyone. For a one bedroom rental, that would represent a 15% increase (on average) for rent increase (based on https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ny/new-york https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ny/new-york ). Note that the long term sublet isn't necessarily a problem - it's the situations where someone is renting out their apartment for less than 30 days and are not occupying it themselves during that period of time. So now that the property owner is going to be issued a violation if there is an illegal short term rental, how does the property owner prevent that? Note that it is legal to rent out a bedroom of a 2 bedroom apartment on a short term basis if the person who holds the rental lease is there the entire time.
- bdowling 3y ago
  I agree. With long-term subletting the tenants are just cheating the system to the detriment of the landlord, but short-term subletting can actually get the landlord fined by the city. I don’t know which is a bigger problem, but I do know that dealing with violations can be a nightmare for landlords even if the violation is cause by the tenant.
  - shagie 3y ago
    I believe the violations would be the larger concern by the landlords. A rent controlled property that is transferred represents a known loss that can be mitigated (and it's not worse than it is today - rent controlled). Violations represent an unknown amount and are unbounded, cannot be controlled for and cannot be mitigated easily or inexpensively... though that's part of the article (if you could do face recognition as a landlord you'd be able to alert someone about suspicious activity at apartment XYZ) that would otherwise represent some significant expenses (that would be even harder to do with rent control).

shagie 3y ago

Yep, except now it's all of NYC that has the "property owner on the hook for any short term rentals". Rough math... let's say a doorman costs $200/day ($70k/year). 20 units in the building. This would amount to $10/day/unit and thus a rent increase of $300/month for everyone. For a one bedroom rental, that would represent a 15% increase (on average) for rent increase (based on https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ny/new-york https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/ny/new-york ). Note that the long term sublet isn't necessarily a problem - it's the situations where someone is renting out their apartment for less than 30 days and are not occupying it themselves during that period of time. So now that the property owner is going to be issued a violation if there is an illegal short term rental, how does the property owner prevent that? Note that it is legal to rent out a bedroom of a 2 bedroom apartment on a short term basis if the person who holds the rental lease is there the entire time.

bdowling 3y ago
I agree. With long-term subletting the tenants are just cheating the system to the detriment of the landlord, but short-term subletting can actually get the landlord fined by the city. I don’t know which is a bigger problem, but I do know that dealing with violations can be a nightmare for landlords even if the violation is cause by the tenant.
- shagie 3y ago
  I believe the violations would be the larger concern by the landlords. A rent controlled property that is transferred represents a known loss that can be mitigated (and it's not worse than it is today - rent controlled). Violations represent an unknown amount and are unbounded, cannot be controlled for and cannot be mitigated easily or inexpensively... though that's part of the article (if you could do face recognition as a landlord you'd be able to alert someone about suspicious activity at apartment XYZ) that would otherwise represent some significant expenses (that would be even harder to do with rent control).