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By: Hellen Zaboulani
A new report indicated that owners of one- and two-family homes are struggling against foreclosure as a result of New York City’s Airbnb crackdown.
As reported by the NY Post, in September Local Law 18 went into effect, requiring short-term rental hosts to register their properties with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (“OSE”), or have their properties removed from booking platforms. A new report by Restore Homeowner Autonomy & Rights (RHOAR), said owners of single and two-family homes are saying they are at 44% higher risk of losing their homes, compared to a year ago, due to higher costs and loss of short-term rental income. The report was recently presented by the grassroots group to members of the city council.
RHOAR has roughly 500 members who own single or two-family properties throughout the five boroughs, many of whom are retired, self-employed or unemployed. Over 33% of the group members have complained that they are having trouble staying afloat since the law has taken away their access to short term rental income. “We are not living in multi-family apartment buildings where you share common spaces,” RHOAR member Jean Lamb told The Post. “Our common spaces are ours and we should have the right to share our homes with whomever we want.”
Many of the group members are complaining that the law should not be targeting them but rather big landlords. They insist that before the rule was passed, they were assured by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, that the new laws wouldn’t be the primarily targeting them. “We were clear our intent is not to go after one- and two-family homeowners,” Williams had told reporters in 2019.
Per the Post, the small property owners say that now they are the one suffering most. “The income that we were able to consistently rely on allowed us to afford our month-to-month expenses,” said Brooklyn homeowner Margenett Moore-Roberts. Airbnb’s grace period ends on Dec. 1 for reservations that were on the file before the law went into effect. The small owners say they don’t know how they will make ends meet moving forward.
Local Law 18 imposes tough penalties of up to $5,000 per violation, for any rental reservation for less than 30 days that is not registered with the city. This includes spaces in apartment buildings and private homes. It also requires owners to be present during the entirety of the stay and that guests must have unrestricted access to common rooms in the dwelling. The law’s main goal was to keep the city’s scarce housing from being used as hotel rooms by greedy landlords, and to address the housing shortage, particularly in Manhattan.
Since the law went into effect, NYC listings on Airbnb dropped by about 75 percent. The RHOAR report outlining hardships to small landlords, urged legislators to make amendments to the law, to exempt private home owners.
Williams, who has been a staunch Airbnb opponent, now admits that the new law is imperfect. “Local Law 18 is a first step, one which may need to be evaluated and adjusted over time, but it is an important step,” Williams told The Post. “We urge the Office of Special Enforcement to focus on large-scale bad actors depleting our city’s housing stock, rather than New Yorkers operating in good faith to try and make ends meet amid the ongoing affordability crisis.”
