New York City’s week-old restrictions on Airbnb and other platforms are spawning a new black market for short-term rentals, with hosts turning to informal methods — both new and old — to attract guests and work out payment.
It’s a throwback to the days before Airbnb, which first came online in 2008, when landlords and tenants advertised units for visitors on sites like Craigslist, or relied on word of mouth to house friends of friends traveling to New York City for a long weekend.
Now, some New Yorkers who have come to rely on Airbnb and other short-term bookings sites for income, or to defer their housing costs, say they’re going back to the basics: returning to Craigslist, testing out Facebook Marketplace, joining WhatsApp group chats and using the website Houfy, which connects hosts with visitors who have to figure out payment on their own.
“New Yorkers always find a way to get around,” said Fatin Yasar, a Queens property owner who started listing a four-bedroom apartment on Craigslist last month. He said he registered the apartment with the city to provide legal short-term rentals, and has a permanent tenant living in one of the rooms.
The city’s new rules prevent Airbnb, Vrbo and other booking platforms from processing payments for stays of less than 30 days — unless a unit has been registered with the city’s Office of Special Enforcement. Short-term rentals for entire apartments are mostly illegal in New York City, rendering them ineligible for registration. Since the city began enforcing the rule last Tuesday, 15,000 short-stay Airbnb listings were removed from the site compared to last month, Gothamist reported.
But Yasar said the rules will simply give rise to a more informal, illicit market.
“It’s been existing. There was and there always will be” he said.
Long-time tenant activist Michael McKee, a member of the Coalition Against Illegal Hotels, agreed, but said the short-term accommodations remove apartments from the city’s rental…
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