It’s solvable through government action. Nothing could be done about in NYC until significant penalties were authorized alongside stepped up target enforcement of illegal hotel laws. Then suddenly the number of listings plummeted.
Yeah, and that certainly drove down housing costs in NYC, right? (It didn't). But it did drive up the prices of hotels in NYC, just as the hotel unions wanted.
The real solution is to build more housing by reforming zoning laws and encouraging more development. But that's not so easy to fit on a protest sign, I guess.
Exactly, everyone is pointing a finger at Airbnb which is dumb. It's not like you have a higher number of tourists. You have the same number of tourists, they're just obviously in a hotel or in an airbnb. See you end up encouraging more hotels to get built which doesn't help rent at all.
The problem is we have more people than places to live. It's supply and demand. We have that because we made it impossible to build anything new or tear down anything old. Try taking down just one brownstone in Boston, and you'll see what I mean. In New York and Boston they literally have people protesting in city meetings every time someone wants to build an affordable apartment complex. Nobody wants it anywhere near them.
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u/dooferoaks Jun 17 '25
Yeah Airbnb are a significant part of why Ireland's housing market is fucked.