Thursday, May 3, 2018

Groups crawl out of the woodwork to support AirBnB

From the Daily News:

Business groups and faith leaders oppose an Assembly bill to require Airbnb operators to give city enforcement agencies details about the units they rent.

The bill represents "an incomplete, piecemeal approach to the regulation of homesharing" that would "impede the growth of the sharing economy in New York," says the state Business Council, which represents 2,400 businesses.

A prominent religious group also opposes the plan, which is being pushed by Airbnb critics.

"We strongly support a robust and affordable housing market — it's essential to ensuring many New Yorkers can afford to stay in the city they love," Mobilizing Preachers & Communities wrote in a memo opposing the bill.

"But this bill will have the opposite effect, cutting off the very means by which many have been able to keep their homes," the group said.

The anti-Airbnb bill would send "a signal that New York is hostile toward business, and specifically the tech sector," said Tech:NYC, a group of technology companies.

The bill would require anyone advertising apartments on home-sharing sites to disclose to city agencies detailed address information like street name and number, apartment number, borough, town and county of the unit being offered.


Okay, so if the only way you can pay your mortgage is to rent it out to strangers, you probably should sell it and just rent. You're putting apartments that could be used by working people who live in NYC on AirBnB to rent out to tourists to make more money. Price your apartment to cover your costs and you won't need to run an illegal hotel.

19 comments:

Rob In Manhattan said...

From the article:
"We strongly support a robust and affordable housing market — it's essential to ensuring many New Yorkers can afford to stay in the city they love," Mobilizing Preachers & Communities wrote in a memo opposing the bill.

"But this bill will have the opposite effect, cutting off the very means by which many have been able to keep their homes," the group said.

This is somewhat disingenuous. In most cases a person can bring in a roommate to share expenses.

What these people want to do is run a defacto hotel without any of screening, physical safeguards or costs of doing so legally.

If these churches and other groups really want to help people hold on to their homes they should do the following:

-Provide a screening and referral service to members who wish to host a long term companion to share expenses.

-Advocate and lobby for --effective-- rent regulations. This may obviate the need for "roomers" to begin with.

Rob In Manhattan

JQ LLC said...

Airbnb has been a pox and cancer on this city. And it's spawning odious imitators. I saw smarmy ads for two other startups plastered entirely in some subway cars.

Recent "hosts" exploiting the "disruptive" platform include the earliest donors to de Faustio during his time from councilman and currently as the most corrupt mayor in NYC history. And nothing can compare to the brazen professional looking ad encouraging tenants at the Ebbets Field Apartments in Brooklyn.

Airbnb, like Uber and Lyft, have brought nothing but chaos to city living in the past 5 years. Houses and apartment buildings are not hotels or motels.

In all the studies about the current homeless crisis, there hasn't been one about the effects this parasitic tech company on towns.

Anonymous said...

If you are renting to tourists the City should be approving the premises first to make sure it's not a firetrap.

Anonymous said...

What are the odds that DiBlasio's administration will use AirB&B to find temporary housing for the city's homeless. I'd say those odds are very high but they just haven't figured out how to get kickbacks without it being traced to the department of homeless servicess and DiBozo's pockets.

Anonymous said...

The anti-Airbnb bill would send "a signal that New York is hostile toward business, and specifically the tech sector," said Tech:NYC, a group of technology companies.

It would, but so what are you gonna do about it, move operations to Albuquerque? The high salary premiums tech companies already have to pay their employees - who want to live in the big coastal cities - as a function of the cost of living already demonstrates how much they'll bend. No one is stopping AirBnB from making their revenue in places where people don't mind lax zoning codes. It's an online service, forgodsakes, it can run in any market across the world. But they're not going to find a large pool of capable tech sector employment talent outside of a dense, regulation-heavy urban area. Tech:NYC is going to have to bend over and deal with it. Maybe they'll even start to self-reflect on the ramifications of their hip liberal attitudes.

Mike said...

Yeah because it's my place and I want to make more money.

You don't get to decide how much more money I want to make.

>> Okay, so if the only way you can pay your mortgage is to rent it out to strangers, you
>> probably should sell it and just rent. You're putting apartments that could be used by >> working people who live in NYC on AirBnB to rent out to tourists to make more money.

Anonymous said...

"so if the only way you can pay your mortgage is to rent it out to strangers, you probably should sell it and just rent"
----------------------------------------------------------------
One big problem with that: Rents are higher then mortgages.
This is a commie shill to fix the housing problem by forcing people to:
1-Sell there homes
2-Accept section 8s to pay the bills (guaranteed government money) --including making private homes house multiple families on the books, under goverment control where you can bet the dirt bag tenants will have more rights then the landlords.
AirBnB guests leave and you can throw them out if they are an asshole. You cant do that with a tennant who establishes residence in your house.
If this shill to socialize housing and more goverment controls at gunpoint is passed homes will end up taking in section 8 cases for the guaranteed rent money.
THEN EVEYBODY IS REALLY FUCKED !!

The solution is to end the 20% hotel tax and scantuary city bullshit. This including handing out all this free stuff & services attracting the whole worlds locust people, bums & freeloaders.
Must be 1 million illegals in this city that dont belong here, taking up space, sucking services wile sending tax free money ($ billions) home across the border, go after that money and leave home owners ALONE !!!

Anonymous said...

Only reason not to list address is because you're renting your apartment illegally. People who buy or lease houses/apts in residential neighborhoods have a right not to live near what are essentially hotels, which should be in commercial areas. Creating opposition from these fake clergy and business groups is straight out of the Uber playbook, which everyone is copying because they were able make Mayor DeBlasio fold like a cheap suit when he wanted a cap on cars.

Anonymous said...

"can be used by working people who live in NYC on AirBnB to rent out to tourists to make more money. Price your apartment to cover your costs and you won't need to run an illegal hotel"


Thats the friggan problem!
You cant discriminate against who wants to rent your place.
I wish I could list "must be working with a professional job" "no kids" "no single females with kids" "must show a copy of a filed W2"
50-50 chance friggan people will pay cash to get a foot in the door then start screwing you 3 months into the lease, then live rent free for 2 years as you fight them in housing court. You will have no other recourse to get the bums out.
Sometimes the fucking no good liberal judges in housing court will make you pay the defaulting tenants electric bills too and jail you if you shut any services off. --the heat included. This is a guaranteed outcome if a child or pregnant female is involved
Meanwhile they are going to destroy your apartment, plumbing, hallways and anything elese they can screw with..
All this recent government control grabs & hostility at small private homeowners is outrageous, what the fuck is this Denmark ? I dont want the government or some real estate agent bringing some "artist" single mom of 5 to my house because I know whats gonna happen down the line !!

Anonymous said...

I don't want 24-7 tenants who have a shitload of right to screw me with.
Part time roommate guests pay their bill and go home, is a better deal.

Who the hell is the government to tell me who I can have in my home, this is all about schmoozing the hotel industry isn't it? A dirty racketeered up system where the city gets a 20% cut. (over $40 on every hotel night stay) deBlasio don't give a shit about homeowners aside of crushing them into submission.

Anonymous said...

Only reason not to list address is because you're renting your apartment illegally. People who buy or lease houses/apts in residential neighborhoods have a right not to live near what are essentially hotels...

better stop there because in Queens some slug makes a donation to another of Crowley's slugs and they can build an entire craphouse on your block and there is nothing you can do about it. Why bitch about an apartment when they can put a 10 story building blocking your windows.

Anonymous said...

If you can't afford your living space move.
Air B&Bs are a nuisance!

Anonymous said...

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE STILL THINK THAT AIRB&B IS A TECH COMPANY. THEY DON'T MANUFACTURE ANY TANGIBLE TECHNOLOGY LIKE APPLE, MICROSOFT, OR SAMSUNG. THEY ARE SIMPLY A WEBSITE THAT OFFERS A SERVICE, A SERVICE THAT IS NOT SO UNIQUE. I CAN GO ON CRAIGSLIST AND LIST MY APARTMENT FOR A SHORT TERM RENTAL AND HAVE THE INTERESTED PARTY PAY ME VIA PAYPAL.

Anonymous said...

Most apartment buildings, and certainly all co-ops and condos, screen the people allowed to live there. Outfits like AirB&B are happy to let anyone in who has the cash to pay. How fair is that to the other residents who have made the largest purchase of their lives--their home--expecting to live among pre-screened people? Who wants to encounter total strangers, different ones every night, in their halls or on the property? Who will vouch for the behavior and any damage done by party people? Who is responsible for any noise or other disturbances? When you are a regular official resident or owner, you have a different, more responsible attitude toward the property and fellow residents. People staying in hotels don't give a crap about their temporary digs. No one buying a co-op or putting their name on the lease of an apartment signed up for a bunch of revolving-door occupiers of the unit next door. That completely ruins the value of their ownership and it's not fair, just so some lowlife can pay their mortgage or make some extra bucks ON THE BACKS OF OTHER RESIDENTS.

Anonymous said...

Political cockroaches!

Joe said...

AirBnB is a peer to peer private membership (club) unlike the "sharing" and bootlegging of intellectual property. Nor can some shod corrupt local state government invoke the patriot act to spy on people.
If the commies in New York enact this anti constitutional self appointed privilege to spy on, and dictate what people can/cant not do in private owned homes ( including extorting money via bogus fines) the supreme court will toss it right out.

The city will be defeated and sustain huge lawsuits, big class action ones with BIG awards for civil rights and civil liberty violations.
They cant get away with this, not with private homes anyway. Even a private owned apartment building, co-op or condo complex not doing business with the city.

LOL every near every condo & co-op from Manhattan to Montauk has at least one short time AirBnB, family or private rental during summer. deBlasio and hotel owners just want to be "Boss"
A bunch of megamanipulative commie socialist maniacs looking to ram more Marxist bullshit down our throats is all they are.

Anonymous said...

This is a foot in the door to privacy invasion, if allowed more anti-constitutional shit like this is sure to follow, bit by bit and never stop.

Rob in Manhattan said...

"If the commies in New York enact this anti constitutional self appointed privilege to spy on, and dictate what people can/cant not do in private owned homes ( including extorting money via bogus fines) the supreme court will toss it right out.

Bullshit. Get realistic. Government can, and does set standards of what you can do to, and in your home.

It is just a matter of inspection. If an illegal modification is done you can be fined and ordered to either restore or have it made to-code. If something really bad happens, you face prison.

This is long settled law. The Supreme Court has nothing to say here.

People who make these arguments are confusing two dissimilar issues.

It is one thing for someone to bring in a "guest" or friend to share an existing legal room in an apartment or home. It is another matter if you are either not there or have created addition spaces without the necessary permits and inspections.

You are also well advised to have insurance to cover any accidents and injuries that may happen to the "guest". A Filipino couple that I know on the lower east side rented an extra bedroom to visitors referred from an agency. things went reasonably well until one guest fell and dislocated his shoulder. The couple had pay his medical bills and that wiped out any profits for most of that year.

In a private home setting, your entire assets could be at risk.

Take one bit of advice from a longtime business owner (restaurants): Do it legally, or don't do it.

Rob In Manhattan

Anonymous said...

"rented an extra bedroom to visitors referred from an agency"

Emm--Maybe you should stick to running restaurants.
Renting is not the same as a 2 or 3 day houseguest and its the homeowners own fault for not buying an umbrella insurance policy.
I have no problem with slumlords illegally dividing rooms and getting busted buy don't penalize the honest small 1 family homeowner in need of extra $$. Have you received the recent water bill ?

One has to be nuts to have a guest stay more then a week, once they establish residence (go to DMV and get a ID card or even a establish cellphone bill mailed to the house for example) they can establish a case and then your fucked.
Any greedy slumlord deserves to be screwed for doing illegal rentals..but don't penalize the small 1 family homeowner by banning houseguests and forcing him to take on the books long term rentals or sec 8.
Because when renters & Sec 8s default of rent or turn into scumbags (1/2 always do) you cant get them out of your house in NYC.
That's why people don't want LEGAL on the books rentals. To many people have problems and cant keep up the rent and screw you. The housing system in NYC basically "marries" renters to the landlord and you need a long LONG costly court proceedings to get them out.

In states like Georgia & Texas for example: If you default on the rent or be an asshole the judge gives to 1 chance + 1 week to straighten up before ordering a sheriff to immediately toss your ass and belongs to the curb!!
That's another reason why the assloles fee to New York, for all the protections, meanwile landlords have near nothing and are treated like public enemy #1