More than 75% of Airbnb’s short-term rentals have vanished from the Big Apple following a tough city crackdown on the home-sharing site, according to a report.
The fast-evaporating listings have left thousands of visitors planning to spend the holidays in Manhattan in limbo – and is expected to provide a boon to the city’s hotel industry.
The controversial regulations for Airbnb’s largest market – which went into effect on Sept. 5 – limit all short-term rentals to just two guests and require the hosts to be present for stays of less than 30 days.
Hosts who have not registered their units and received approval from the city can face fines of up to $5,000 for skirting the new rules.
Airbnb faces similar fines, leading the San Francisco-based company to block the calendars of its short-term rental hosts who have not provided a city registration number.
Existing short-term rental reservations made prior to Sept. 5 are being honored through Dec. 1.
The clampdown has reduced the number of short-term rentals since the rules went into effect by 77% – to 4,600 as of Sept. 10, from 22,500 three months ago, according to travel industry website Skift, citing data from AirDNA.
Some of those units switched over to rentals for stays of 30 days or longer, which grew by 48%, to 34,900, accounting for 87% of Airbnb’s total listings in New York City, according to the data.
“Everyone is in a tailspin to figure out what the future holds and trying to figure out the next steps,” Lisa Grossman, a travel agent and founder of an advocacy group for private homeowners who rent out space on Airbnb, told The Post on Monday.
The city’s powerful hotel industry, which has long fought against Airbnb’s rise, will be among the biggest beneficiaries of the new rule, industry experts said.
Hotels were forecasting a 10% increase in revenue per available room in New York City next year but with a hobbled Airbnb, that increase could rise by as much as 16%, according to Skift.
Google searches for city hotels have jumped by 24% over the past week, according to Kevin Davis, CEO of JLL Hotels & Hospitality’s Americas.
“We’re seeing a tremendous amount of interest in people staying in New York City hotels,” Davis told CNBC on Monday.
The city has argued the registration is necessary because so many hosts were not following the law. It hopes the new rules will help alleviate a housing crunch caused by the lack of rental inventory, which has sent rents soaring to record levels.
“It was a hush, hush thing [to be an Airbnb host] because they were not abiding by the city rules, but now NYC forced Airbnb to abide by the rule,” Syed Lateef, an Airbnb superhost who runs SyedBnB, told The Post.
“The hotel industry will win and the landlords will win and the small mom-and-pop Airbnb hosts will win because all of sudden there will be more demand for their units,” Lateef added.
Chirstian Klossner, executive director of the city’s Office of Special Enforcement, which regulates the industry, said in a statement, “Registration creates a clear path for hosts who follow the city’s long-standing laws and protects travelers from illegal and unsafe accommodations, while significantly limiting the proliferation of illegal short-term rentals.”
