Proponents of the bill said the New York bill was designed to ensure compliance, as online rental platforms like Airbnb need to verify that a listing has been properly registered with the city before the platform can charge. Fines for hosts who don’t abide by the rule could go as high as $ 5,000, and platforms like Airbnb could be fined $ 1,500 for any illegal transaction.
Mr Johnson said illegal rentals “pose a threat to our communities and take away affordable housing when we need it badly.” He added that the bill would ensure “lawful and safe use of our homes”.
It’s not exactly clear how many of the New York City entries are illegal, and the effectiveness of the new law will depend in part on how well the city enforces the new law. In places like Santa Monica, Boston, and San Francisco, the data showed a modest to significant decrease in the number of entries after a registration system was in place.
Based on the number of listings promoting short-term rentals for entire homes or apartments in town, suggesting a host might not be there, proponents of the bill estimate that up to about 19,000 Airbnb listings will be illegal and eventually out of the country List could be deleted.
However, Stephen Smith, co-founder of Quantierra, a real estate company, questioned the impact of the new bill, saying that many illegal offers had already been removed from the list. And even if the estimates were correct, that would not be enough to contain the city’s housing crisis.
“These politicians seem to think that this will do something for affordability, and in fact it is likely to do very little,” he said.
Combining the bill with another city initiative to curb new hotel development could significantly reduce the number of affordable accommodations for visitors to the city, Smith said.
“If you make it really hard enough for people to get to New York, they’re going to stop coming to New York,” he said.
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