By Maurin Picard
Published on 11/10/2023 at 07:00, Updated on 11/10/2023 at 12:07
A New York landlord is now prohibited from renting out his apartment for a stay of less than 30 days. FrankBoston – stock.adobe.com
Are you going to NYC? Are you thinking of renting an apartment via Airbnb-type platforms? This will now be difficult, even prohibited for a stay of less than 30 days, due to much stricter legislation.
New York is no longer the mecca of private rentals
At its origins, between 2008 and 2013, Airbnb depended 70-80% on the megalopolis on the east coast. This is no longer the case today, due to the expansion of its activity in all major American cities. But it is also the city where the Californian platform encounters the oldest and strongest protests, launched by the hotel industry and real estate agencies. On September 5, the town hall promulgated a new law, the Local Law 18prohibiting any New York owner from renting out all or part of their property for a period of less than 30 days.
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What specific rules apply to landlords?
In New York, all owners must first register. For stays of less than one month, he can only offer one room in his apartment, only if he is at home during the entire stay of the visitor(s). There cannot be more than two of them, the room they occupy must be directly accessible. Failing to have received a green light, owners are required to refuse any payment via a rental platform. Any violation would result in serious financial penalties, and likely sanctions for the platform itself. And the proper application of these rules will be monitored by a dedicated body: theOffice of Special Enforcement (OSE).
What is the impact of these new regulations?
Only 405 properties available on Airbnb were approved, out of the 4,624 applications received. Raanan – stock.adobe.com
Airbnb has visibly underestimated the determination of the municipal authorities, the team of New York Mayor, member of the Democratic Party, Eric Adams wishing to pull out all the stops to resolve the dilemma of real estate inflation, devastating for low-income households. income, unable to acquire property within five boroughs from the city. The platform had anticipated that it would likely be able to have the said law, initially passed in 2022, blocked in court. In doing so, it failed to inform its clients of the risk of having to show a white hand before the city. However, his complaint was rejected on appeal on August 4, 2023. Currently, only 405 properties available on Airbnb have been approved, out of the 4,624 files received. 214 were definitively rejected, and 758 returned for missing information. The others, by the thousands, pile up waiting to be processed.
Why such toughness on the part of the New York authorities?
Big Apple is suffering from a serious real estate crisis, under the combined effect of a surge in rents and the notable weakness of the rental stock, faced with enormous demand in a city of 8.6 million inhabitants, which is gaining in average 200,000 new residents per year. However, in July, all rental platforms brought together 23,000 properties, as many apartments, rooms and single-storey houses unavailable to New Yorkers looking for accommodation. In this figure, 4,100 properties rented annually represent 40% of the turnover generated in New York.
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Can the situation get better?
The CEO and co-founder of Airbnb himself, Brian Chesky, is pessimistic: “ I think there won’t be a resolution in New York for a long time », he warns, in the absence of any relaxation in view of the rules imposed by the municipality. Many owners, wishing to regularize their activity, quickly submitted their update file, in order to obtain the famous sesame. The results are gloomy, three months after the supposed deadline for submitting files: due to a lack of sufficient rentals, the price of the city’s 135,000 hotel rooms should automatically increase.
“The price of the city’s 135,000 hotel rooms should automatically increase”
The fault largely lies with the responsible body, the OSE: the latter, suffering from a lack of staff, saw the processing time for files increase from 50 to 87 days. There is therefore hope that the number of Airbnb and equivalent offers, such as VRBO, will begin to grow again as the administration decongests this congestion node. “ We will always be regulated and we will always be in dialogue » with local authorities, summarizes Brian Chesky. For travelers, it will also be necessary to count on the growing classic hotel offer, with 10,000 new rooms expected in the city, an increase of 8.5% in the hotel stock in New York.
Read alsoTen hotels among the most emblematic in New York
2023-10-11 05:00:08
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