Does limiting Airbnbs really do any good?

In the past we called it that furnished tourist accommodation today we talk airborne. And even if it is not 100% the same thing, the name is there for what has become a global phenomenon in the tourist accommodation sector of this Xxi And century… and also the cause, some will say, of this excessive tourism and above all the lack of sustainable housing for local populations which is affecting more and more places around the world.

As a result, cities like New York Dubrovnik, Barcelona and many others have legislated to limit the “damage” that can be caused by a sometimes excessive and poorly regulated system in certain places.

New York a year later

Among the cities where the formula is – or has been – thriving is New York. New York which was also one of the first to react and adopt drastic measures to say the least against Airbnb and other identical rental companies. This was over a year ago. It’s time to make an initial assessment.

Concretely, since then September 2023, the City of New York prohibits owners from renting furnished tourist accommodations for periods of less than 30 consecutive days. So no more rentals for a weekend, a week or a few days for entire apartments. Because it is true that the possibility of simply offering a room in the accommodation you occupy is always authorized from the moment you registered with the Municipality and paid a tax of 150 dollars every two years. Pretty heavy fines…

In short, more than restrictive measures which, even if short-term rentals still exist in the form of “rooms in private homes”, have discouraged more than one owner. Which was already one of the objectives of the maneuver.

In one year, Airbnb offers in the city went from over 22,000 to 4,000. An evident slowdown but which perhaps did not have the desired effects, first and foremost on the housing crisis in the agglomeration.

In addition to the fact that some budget-minded visitors are now having trouble finding accommodations, the reduced seasonal supply of rentals in New York has, as you might expect, increased demand for hotels in the city. Hotels that have rushed to raise their prices four times more in the last 12 months than anywhere else in the United States.

The same goes for Airbnb owners, some of whom relied on this rental income to pay their loans or simply live. So much so that many of those who moved from seasonal to full-time did so with higher-than-average rents to recoup their losses. Other landlords followed, which quickly led to some increase in rents in the city.

In summary, we can say that if the new New York regulations have tried to solve a problem, they have also indirectly created new ones.
Today, for many tourists on a low budget, staying in New York is more expensive, many small owners of furnished accommodation have seen their income decrease, and seasonal furnished accommodation has moved to the standard rental market (the purpose of the measures adopted) has found itself at higher than average rents, even leading to an almost general increase in the city.

Maybe not so good when we suddenly go from one excess to another. Like the one who said that at the end “the best is the enemy of the good” it wasn’t necessarily wrong.

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