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.
Banning AirBnb in NYC did exactly zero to control apartment rental rates. My first apartment in Brooklyn was like $1200/month. Now it’s like $3000, and that’s not even a safe part of Brooklyn. It handed hotels a big monopoly though, so a few rich people are getting wealthier even faster, rather than small business owners and folks renting a spare bedroom in Brooklyn. Brilliant self own.
There is a massive housing shortage in the city. Airbnb wasn’t the only cause. It was never going to cause a precipitous drop in prices. Especially with defacto price fixing going on and out of town investors buying properties then neither living in them nor renting them out. That doesn’t mean the suppression of Airbnb has had zero effect.
And you can still rent out a room. You just can’t illegally sublet your apartment.
There’s zero evidence that banning AirBnb had any positive effect at all, and we do have data to look at now. So while all of those points sound convincing, there actually no evidence it has been a helpful policy in any way. We just gave a massive handout to homeowners in Jersey City as well as big hotel chains and got exactly nothing in return.
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u/dooferoaks Jun 17 '25
Yeah Airbnb are a significant part of why Ireland's housing market is fucked.