Group27 Overview

Group27:Airbnb Crisis in NYC

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Airbnb in New York City

Airbnb boasts almost two million listings in 34,000 cities, and according to data from Inside Airbnb, a independent data analysis website, listed about 36000 apartments in New York as of July 5, 2016. This data exploration sets out to visualize how Airbnb operates in New York City. Airbnb's presence in NYC has been clouded in controversy from the beginning, with law makers arguing that Airbnb drive up rents for New York residents, as well as facilitating a lot of illegal hosting activities, all the while not paying any of the fees hotels are subjected to. Rent is drived up when landlords decide to rather rent apartments to short-term guests at higher rates, compared to signing up tenants for yearlong leases. In a study conducted in 2014, The New York State Attorney General concluded that 72%of all units used as private short-term rentals on Airbnb during 2010 through mid-2014 appeared to violate both state and local New York laws. New York’s short-term rental laws, which were last updated in 2010, basically prohibit most apartments (buildings with three or more units) in New York City from being rented out for less than 30 days. This means that the majority of entire home/apartment listings that you find on Airbnb and other sites for New York City would be considered illegal, especially if you can book them for a period of less than 30 days. Airbnb has not actively helped city or state officials limit illegal listings on their sites and, according to data supplied by Airbnb, entire home listings outnumber listings for private rooms or shared spaces on their platform for New York City.