Skift Take
It’s worth taking this report with a grain of salt considering who commissioned it, but regardless, it’s hard to deny that Airbnb is having some impact on pricing people out in some of New York City’s most desirable neighborhoods.
A new report commissioned and paid for by Housing Conservation Coordinators and MFY Legal Services purports to show to what degree Airbnb is contributing to New York City’s housing crisis.
For each of the top 20 neighborhoods for Airbnb listings in Manhattan and Brooklyn, average rent increases have nearly doubled the citywide average from 2011 to 2015. In 2015, the report estimates the city also lost more than 8,000 housing units to Airbnb, reducing access to affordable housing in the city by 10%.
The report, conducted by BJH Advisors, a real estate development and advisory firm, compiled data from a variety of independent sources, including Airdna, which provides analytics for sharing economy hosts.
Additionally, the study found the following:
More than 55% (28,765 listings out of 51,397) of Airbnb NYC listings in 2015 violate the state's short-term housing law (for entire apartment/home listings) and were rented for more than a third of a year;
30% of New York City’s Airbnb listings are operated by “commercial” operators (those who rented out multiple housing units or had listings available for more than six months a year);
The revenue generated by these commercial operators was estimated at $317.5 million in 2015;
More than 90% of Airbnb’s listings are concentrated in the boroughs of Manhattan (55%) and Brooklyn (36%), and;
The average NYC Airbnb unit is rented 11 days per month, or 132 days per year. This means these units are unavailable for nearly 4.5 months for residents.
Airbnb's Response
Airbnb said this latest report was "misleading." Airbnb public affairs spokesperson Christopher Nulty said, “If the hotel lobby that funded this misleading study was serious about affordable housing, they would have urged politicians in Albany to act on real solutions like restarting the 421-a tax credit program. Instead, they made targeting middle-class people their top priority. We need to work together to find solutions that actually benefit middle class New Yorkers, including how to protect responsible home sharers, rather than protecting the interests of the well
