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Traveling to New York City? Be warned: Renting an Airbnb is going to get a lot harder.
A new ordinance went into effect Tuesday requiring all short-term-rental hosts to be registered with the city, live in the place they are renting, be present when someone is staying, and host only two guests at once.
The rule — titled Local Law 18 — affects all platforms for booking short-term rentals, including Airbnb
ABNB,
Booking.com
BKNG,
Expedia Group Inc.’s
EXPE,
Vrbo and others.
The rule will likely eliminate many Airbnb listings in New York City.
“New York City’s new short-term-rental rules are a blow to its tourism economy and the thousands of New Yorkers and small businesses in the outer boroughs who rely on home sharing and tourism dollars to help make ends meet. The city is sending a clear message to millions of potential visitors who will now have fewer accommodation options when they visit New York City: You are not welcome,” Theo Yedinsky, global policy director for Airbnb, said in a statement to CNN.
Airbnb filed a lawsuit against New York City in June this year, calling the rule a “de facto ban against short-term rentals in New York City.” A judge dismissed the case in August.
According to Skift, the total number of Airbnb listings could fall by 70%.
AirDNA said that as of July, there were 23,000 “active listings” in New York City. That refers to listings that have been rented, or had at least one day of booking availability over the past month in the city. Out of these listings, 4,100 listings which were not new or rented infrequently generated 40% of the revenue earned in the market. “These are the listings we are watching to see what the impact is on NYC hosts,” AirDNA said.
In any case, we do expect there to be a big drop in listings as a significant part of the 47,000 “visible” listings on Airbnb are not actively being rented, so they will simply disappear from the platform. There appear to be about 13,000 that would be exempt from the restrictions (either rented with the host present or available only for stays of 28 nights or more) and more listings could transition to mid-term rentals or just renting a room instead of the entire place.
Another factor to remember is that even before the announcement that enforcement would be stepped up in September, the existing regulatory regime had already been effective in keeping STR listings lower in New York City than they would be otherwise. While the U.S. as a whole recovered its listing count early last year from the pandemic drop-off, New York’s current available listing count of 23,000 is well short of its 36,000 available listings in July 2019.
Airbnb had already blocked calendars to prevent new reservations as early as Aug. 14, the company’s website stated, in anticipation of the Sept. 5 deadline.
“Existing reservations with check-in on or before December 1 will not be canceled to mitigate impact to Hosts and guests,” the company added. “To comply with the short-term rental regulations, we will be refunding all Airbnb fees associated with these stays after check-in occurs.”
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