Immaculately dressed, with a beaming smile, a Fort Greene resident named Carol poses for a picture on the Airbnb website. The bold title next to her image reads, ”How Airbnb helped Carol keep her salon and her home.” What follows is a touching tale of the Brooklynite’s financial recovery after the crash of 2008, as she rented out a room in her home to supplement her income and turn her business around.
Carol is the latest poster girl for Airbnb’s “Supporting New Yorkers” site, a slick publicity campaign launched by the organization in response to fierce opposition from New York City officials and organizations.
Airbnb is the company that helps people rent out rooms in their homes, and it has exploded over recent years, housing more than 25 million guests in more than 190 countries, according to the Airbnb website. The option for tourists to rent out rooms or apartments rather then staying in hotels has proven popular, and lucrative. In New York City, the revenue to Airbnb hosts for this year is expected to exceed $282 million, according to a report by the Attorney General’s office.
And in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Airbnb has made its mark. Airbnb users spent $89 million in Brooklyn last year, and Airbnb guests spent an average of $740 in the community they visited, according to Nick Papas, an Airbnb spokesperson. Williamsburg and Greenpoint had the largest number of private short-term rentals in Brooklyn, 40 percent of the borough-wide total and ten percent citywide.
Airbnb makes the case that it provides an economic blessing to New Yorkers. But many argue fiercely against this narrative, making the case that the company is bad for the city and its residents, and not what it purports to be.
In October Eric Schneiderman, New York State’s Attorney General, released a comprehensive report based on four years worth of Airbnb user data. The report stated that up to 72 percent of units used as private short-term rentals on Airbnb violated state and local laws in New York.
But one of the fascinating things the report noted was that six percent of Airbnb hosts dominated the market, offering hundreds of units and raking in almost 37 percent of all host revenue. Of these “commercial users,” well over 100 controlled ten or more unique Airbnb units, with the highest administering 272 unique Airbnb listings.
These commercial ventures are a far cry from the story of Carol of Fort Greene.
While Airbnb depicts itself as a means to help struggling New Yorkers make ends meet and cope with rising rental costs, critics, such as Ilana Maeir, of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, point out that “the tenants making ends meet don’t own six properties.” Maeir argues that rather than aiding Brooklyn residents and communities, developers and management companies are the only ones benefiting.
Such divergent statements are just one example of the tensions between Airbnb and its critics. Opponents argue that the site is a threat to affordable housing, as landlords and developers opt for short-term profitable rentals over rent-stabilized buildings. They also have concerns about public safety, as tenants hand over their keys to strangers.
Part of this vociferous opposition comes from hotels, whose representatives point out that Airbnb renters do not have to pay the same tax rates or be held up to the same safety standards as members of their industry. “We question the appropriateness of permitting various people transient hotel-like access in residential buildings,” said Stephen Spinola of the Real Estate Board of New York. “Hotels are held to higher safety standards due specifically to the temporary nature of their services.”
Yet one Williamsburg resident and frequent Airbnb host—her first name is Laura, but she did not want to give her full name for fear of jeopardizing her rentals—says she has not encountered any of these issues. Laura uses the site at least eight times a year, sometimes up to a month at a time. For her, the site is a means to supplement her income and meet some interesting people along the way. “I think big hotels are losing money to Airbnb and are looking to shut it down,” she said.
One of the central issues at stake here is legality. According to the New York State Multiple Dwelling Act, it is illegal to rent short-term for less than 30 days if the resident is not permanently living there. With more than 72 percent of rentals reportedly violating the law, according to the Attorney General’s report, Maier and other members of the “Share Better” coalition, a group of politicians and organizations who oppose Airbnb, argue that tenants are not aware they are breaking the law. The company, they argue, does an “atrocious job” of informing hosts of the risks involved.
Maeir runs a tenant hotline with the Metropolitan Council on Housing for residents in New York City. She says she has spoken to multiple residents who are facing eviction as a result of putting up their homes for short-term rentals, as tenants in some cases may be violating their leases. “I can tell you from firsthand experience that talking to these people that are facing eviction it’s probably one of the most stressful things they’ll ever go through in their lives,” she said. The Airbnb spokesperson, Papas, stated that the company asks all of its hosts to review their lease agreement and check with their landlord before they list their space.
With recent moves from other cities such as Portland and San Francisco to legalize short-term rentals, the pressure on New York City to accept these ventures and cooperate with them is mounting.
Yet the opposition does not show any sign of wavering. “This isn’t taking place in just any housing market,” said Maeir. “New York has a housing crisis going on right now and Airbnb is exacerbating that crisis.”
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