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These 1200 ghost hotels earned $30 million last year, took a minimum of 1400 units of housing off the market, and have flown under the radar of regulators, although they are almost certainly illegal. Here's an Airbnb guest review from one of the larger NYC ghost hotels:
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Combining the entire-home listings with the ghost hotels, there are significant swathes of the city where 2% or more of ALL housing has been converted to full-time Airbnb use, which is a scandal when the rental vacancy rate is as low as it is.
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Finally, Q4: "Is Airbnb driving gentrification in New York?"
The short answer is "yes", and I have a separate paper undergoing peer review which makes this case in more detail: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318281320_Airbnb_and_the_Rent_Gap_Gentrification_Through_the_Sharing_Economy
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The short answer is "yes", and I have a separate paper undergoing peer review which makes this case in more detail: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318281320_Airbnb_and_the_Rent_Gap_Gentrification_Through_the_Sharing_Economy
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What the report demonstrates is that Airbnb has become a major new source of residential rents in NYC. Across much of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, something like 5% of all residential rent payments now happen through Airbnb.
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This new rental revenue creates powerful incentives for landlords to evict tenants & convert apartments to STRs. The pressure is highest in Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Bed-Stuy—these are where high-frequency Airbnb hosts make far more money than standard landlords.
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One consequence of the competition from Airbnb hosts for apartments is that median rents citywide are going up thanks to Airbnb. Applying an existing econometric model to the NYC case, we get a rough estimate of an extra $380/year for the median new rent.
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Finally, existing research by @InsideAirbnb and some new findings from our report make it clear that Airbnb's impacts on New York housing are heavily racialized. Murray Cox already demonstrated that it's white hosts making the money in Black neighborhoods in NYC.
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What we found is that historically Airbnb revenue is highest in white areas of the city, but that high-growth neighborhoods (where gentrification pressures are the strongest) are disproportionately communities of color. Above all, Bed-Stuy and Harlem.
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There's plenty of more information in the report, but I'll wrap up there. Again, it's available for download at http://www.sharebetter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/High-Cost-Short-Term-Rentals.pdf.
In the next little while I'll retweet some of the press coverage the report has received, and answer any questions people might have.
23/23
In the next little while I'll retweet some of the press coverage the report has received, and answer any questions people might have.
23/23
