joining us now to discuss what this means for renters
is Jonathan, Miller president and ceo of Miller Samuel,
that's an independently owned and operated firm
that provides appraisal and consulting services
of property here in new york city, Jonathan good to have you here.
Thanks so much for joining us.
The city's housing market has always really been tight.
So what is this report sort of symbolized to you? Were you surprised by this at all?
No, I think it's a step in making Airbnb or short term rentals more mainstream uh,
have to remember that the Airbnb product generally is for short term stays.
So what it's doing is it's pulling
inventory from traditional rentals which are at
or near record highs and making them tighter
because of the incentive for a landlord meaning
an individual property owner to rent them.
By our latest estimates that
uh, on a rent per square foot basis.
Airbnb can capture 2.5 times more rent than a traditional
one year lease on a per square foot basis.
So it's, it's gonna be hard to dissuade young
or new landlords from using the service.
Absolutely,
Because you have your rent and your mortgage basically covered really easily.
So how do we sort of get here?
What factors might have contributed to this housing shortage here?
Well, I think part part of it is just the construction of affordable housing,
which has always been a challenge since time began in new york.
One thing to remember is that, you know,
up until this Airbnb for lack of a better description has been
sort of the bad boy of the rental market in new york.
There's been a very adversarial relationship because
Landlords have to use their primary residence for the short term rentals.
And they you can't have leases less than 30
days that at least everything I've read and seen.
Um that is not the norm that people regularly violate that. So
um I think by having a higher profile like this uh connecting with a base of, you know,
large landlords that it helps them sort of assimilate into the mainstream instead
of being um sort of this outlier that it's been up until now,
look, people have been doing this, have been putting their apartment on, you know,
on a
maybe, you know, for a long time, it's kind of been sort of this, you know,
the secret that everybody's known about for a long time.
Given the fact that new york city has prohibited short term
rentals in multi unit buildings without the owner present since 2011.
They also made it illegal to even advertise these listings
since 2016.
I mean, can the city even get ahead of this now,
given the fact that people have been doing this for a while,
I doubt it.
Uh you know, and I think, I think, you know,
one of the biggest challenge with this in terms of New york city
and and and and other other large urban markets is uh you know,
affordability for the workers that live and work in the city.
And, and this has been a struggle for more than a century.
Uh, and I think that this proliferation or ease of use with,
with this with short term rentals because it takes away
from the already tight housing stock that it does um,
exacerbate or make the problem more extreme meaning reduce affordability.
But to the property owners that lease,
this is certainly a welcome flow of revenue that they couldn't ordinarily have.
Oh, absolutely, Jonathan.
How do you sort of think other states,
other cities will sort of be responding to this and how they
sort of look at this given what's happening in new york city,
are they kind of looking at new york city is sort of a case example for themselves.
I'm not sure.
I think that, you know, at least, you know, from the outside, it looks like, you know,
they've been relatively adversarial uh, with metro areas with some exceptions,
I'm sure.
Um, and I'm not so sure that there's much that can be done uh, in terms of, uh, you know,
part of the reason some of this these rules come into effect is just to,
um, you know, if you're, say, a multi,
you own a condo in your in a building and
the next door neighbor is an Airbnb and there's,
you know, a new neighbor every two or three days, some are allowed, some aren't,
there's a quality of life issue that when you bought the space you weren't aware of.
And so
um you know, there's been a lot of efforts to sort of control that,
which I don't think have largely worked.
Why have cities like New york city struggled
to really regulate companies like Airbnb here?
Why is it always sort of been an issue for them?
I just think, first of all, it's a large scale challenge.
On on one hand, you have a, you know, extreme economic benefit to say,
a property owner.
Um but it's also to the detriment of a neighbor uh, that didn't sign up for this.
So, um you know, there's this sort of, you know,
constant tension between the two parties and um you know,
now we're seeing Airbnb sort of go mainstream uh with this
national rollout effort and I think all it ends up doing besides
um putting them into more of a mainstream perception is the
fact that it just makes things more expensive for renters.
All right, Jonathan, Miller President and Ceo of Miller Samuel,
that's an independently owned and operated firm that provides appraisal
and consulting services for property here in new york city.
Thanks so much for joining us, Jonathan