Homes are not hotels and Airbnb has to obey NYC local laws on short-term rentals

If you’re reading this online, when you’re done with the editorials, you should peruse the op-eds, then the news, sports and entertainment coverage. But after that, as an experiment, look at Airbnb.com or Vrbo.com and search for places to stay in New York City. You should see no more than a trickle of whole apartments available for short-term rent. If you see more, you’ll be staring at a certified list of lawbreakers — illegal hotels violating the city’s statute requiring all residences participating in this corner of the economy be registered with government.

The law, fought over in the courts since its adoption in January 2022 and its first false start in March 2023, really finally takes effect today, taking seriously the long list of city and state statutes establishing that homes in the five boroughs are not to be vacated and put on the market for less than 30 days at a time.

That’s not how we’d make the rules if we had our druthers; while banning true illegal hotels, we’d allow for a traveling actor or teacher away for the summer to make a little extra cash with occasional rentals, provided that didn’t violate the terms of their lease. But lawmakers came to a different conclusion. They make no distinction between the rare lawbreaker and the flagrant one. And now, after a judge tossed Airbnb’s last challenge, that judgment, written into the statute books, is being taken seriously, unlike, say, the laws barring illegal cannabis shops.

New Yorkers are forbidden from renting out their residence. If they wish to rent, they must be present in the home, as a host. And they must prove that they’re not effectively running an illegal hotel by turning over all kinds of information to the city, which will then list them in a registry (while also maintaining a list of buildings where short-term rentals of any kind are totally verboten by the terms of the lease). All Airbnb or Vrbo or other short-term rentals of properties that aren’t in the city’s registry are subject to huge fines from $1,000 to $7,500.

There’s some consistent public policy logic behind the new regulatory regime. If housing supply is indeed limited and precious as everyone says, it’s a collective problem to take thousands upon thousands of units off the market and rent them for a few days at a time to tourists. So, too, it’s a problem, especially in a multi-unit building, for one or two apartments to suddenly have a long string of strangers fumbling with the keys and lumbering through the halls. If a permanent resident gets loud or fills the air ducts with pot smoke or is otherwise disrespectful to their neighbors, there’s typically a price to be paid; not so with a fly-by-night visitor.

Many global cities have imposed strict rules barring short-term rentals. They are often observed more in the breach than in the observance.

Presumably, there’s no enforceable law preventing you from having a friend (or a “friend”) watch your house or your cat while you’re away in exchange for a thank-you gift. But today ushers in a new day in New York City: homes are supposed to be treated as homes, and hotel rooms as hotel rooms.