Local Law 18, which had a huge push from hotel owners and the affiliate unions that see house-sharing platforms as serial killers out to get one Hilton at a time, is tricky, because it does not effect an outright ban. Someone can become a host by registering with the city’s Office of Special Enforcement, but the process is long and tedious, and the office maintains the right to reject your petition. Of the 5,661 applications received by early February, 1,387 have been granted and 955 have been denied.
How effective the new regulations have been in advancing the cause of affordable housing, part of the goal, is not entirely clear, but the consequences for many homeowners who have depended on income from short-term rentals — not for a Wolf induction range or a trip to Morocco, but simply for the purpose of getting by, seems fairly unambiguous.
In November, RHOAR (the acronym for Restore Homeowner Autonomy & Rights) a grass-roots group of hundreds of property owners who have struggled in the aftermath of Local Law 18, issued a report examining some of its effects. More than 90 percent of those surveyed said they were now having trouble meeting monthly housing costs like mortgages and utilities. Nearly a third were delaying critical repairs to roofs, plumbing and windows.
While the homeowner rate in New York City hovers at about one-third, that figure varies by borough and race, with rates for white and Asian families considerably higher than for Black and Hispanic families. The contractor and filmmaker Tony Lindsay began posting his house in East New York in Brooklyn on Airbnb in 2018, first for extra cash and then as a lifeline when work slowed down and a second rental property, a two-family house owned by his father not far away in Bushwick, became a liability.
The problem, Mr. Lindsay said, is the inequity built into the new law, which “reflects a preoccupation with conversations that were framed and directed by the privileged.” A certain class of buildings, some containing condominiums, where units might command a very high nightly price, remain exempt.
