UUntil recently, visitors to New York essentially had two options. A hotel room or a short-term rental platform like Airbnb. But in September 2023, the city began enforcing a 2022 law that prohibits people from renting a home for less than 30 days (unless the host stays in the home with a guest).

Currently, hotel rooms are the only legitimate option for people visiting the city, but they are out of reach for many. Most Times Square hotels don’t have rooms for less than $300 a night. Searches on Thursday, May 2nd found Muse for $356, Hampton Inn for $323, and Hard Rock for $459 (but due to dynamic pricing, these can change regularly). They become more expensive. Hotel prices rose at twice the rate of inflation from the first quarter of this year to the first quarter of 2023, said Jan Freitag, an analyst at real estate data firm Coster Group.

Many visitors and New Yorkers are turning to the underground rental market, where Facebook groups, Craigslist posts, Instagram listings, and reviews have become the go-to for finding short-term rentals in the five boroughs.

If you have friends in New York, you’ve probably seen their Instagram stories. “Hello everyone! I’m renting out my room in my 5-bed apartment to him again for 4 days over Easter! I have to deal with a dog and a rude roommate! DM me if you’re interested!”

Other travelers headed to New Jersey, making the kaleidoscopic city across the Hudson the nation’s fastest-growing Airbnb demand market, according to analytics site AirDNA. Other companies are snapping up hotels, which are expected to become even more expensiven the coming years. For many tourists, a good answer to the so-called Airbnb ban has not yet been found.

Yoya Busquets, 56, had been considering an Airbnb in New Jersey, but she really wants to stay there when she visits from Barcelona with her husband and two teenage daughters in early September. . She took a quick peek at her Facebook, where she chatted on Messenger with some people advertising short-term rentals. The last time she visited New York was in 2012, when she stayed at an Airbnb in Brooklyn, and she hopes to have a similar experience. She might get lucky.

“I’ve been in contact with a girl who has a room available for a week, and it’s listed on Airbnb as in New Jersey, but when I contacted her, she said it was in Brooklyn,” she said.

The apartment happened to be close to the area she had previously stayed in and was within her $160 per night budget. Considering the cost of a hotel and the space her daughters needed to relax after a busy day, it was the best option she found. But that setup is probably in violation of the new law, which is why the apartment is listed in Jersey.

AirDNA, which tracks data from short-term rental sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, says listings for stays of less than 30 days have declined by 83% since August 2023, when the regulations began taking effect. At one time in New York City he had 22,200 short-term properties available. That number currently stands at just 3,700, according to AirDNA.

Tesin Parra, 24, was looking for a job that would allow her to continue living in the United States after completing her thesis and classes, while also looking for a place for her family to stay as she graduates from New York University in May. Program for Journalism.

“This is their first time in New York City, so I want them to have a good experience,” Para, who is originally from India, said of her parents and grandmother. “She wanted to do an Airbnb so she could also cook,” she said.So she was disappointed when she learned that short-term rentals weren’t really an option anymore.

Parra wants a place with space for her family to gather. As a sign of her gratitude and respect, she wants to cover the cost of her family’s accommodation and has budgeted around $200 (£160) per night for a week-long stay.

“I’m kind of stuck as to what to do,” Parra said. “Probably a hotel, but I’d have to pay about $400 a night, and I don’t have that kind of money.”

Now, with the double stress of finishing school and facing hotel bills she can’t afford, she’s at a crossroads. She either chooses a hotel, has her parents pay for it, or rents something short-term, which is technically impossible in New York. Legal?

Without the accountability and protection that platforms like Airbnb offer, avoiding scams when searching for short-term rentals has become the norm. So Pala skipped scanning his Craigslist altogether. Currently, she is considering booking an Airbnb in New Jersey, but she worries that the local PATH train traffic will be an inconvenience for her grandmother.

This regulation was passed with the goal of keeping rent prices in check for New Yorkers by putting apartment inventory back on the market, but it is often important for New York renters and homeowners who lived in apartments while still living in apartments. It also cut off a major source of income. Where they were when they were out of town. Some New Yorkers are still looking for ways to bring in funds.

Kathleen, whose last name is withheld for privacy reasons, only recently began renting an East Village apartment on the underground rental market. The 29-year-old travels frequently for her personal finance job and to visit her family in North Carolina. According to her, she’s out of town for about four months a year, and of course, she still has to pay $2,600 a month in rent while she’s away. To make up for some of her lost money, she started connecting with undocumented people through Facebook groups.

“I thoroughly vetted a lot of people,” she said, voicing concerns about how her space would be treated given the lack of protection that short-term rental platforms offer hosts. I made it. She has two guests: her. One is a weekend visitor, the other stays at her apartment for three weeks in the summer. They pay her $50 a night.

“I always have a side hustle,” she said. “If I can make extra money, why not make extra money? I live in a great place. I thought it would be a nice, cute place.”

This is the spot where a visitor like Juan José Tejada could become a champion. Tejada, a wellness influencer from Bogotá, Colombia, is visiting New York for nine days in July with his best friend. He began his location search by looking at hotels, but he soon realized they were too expensive.

“I’m 25 years old. I’m traveling with my best friend. And, you know, we don’t have that much of a budget,” he said. At the suggestion of a cousin who lives in the city, Tejada used Facebook to search for short-term rental properties. What he discovered was four times his budget of $100 to $200 per night. But that wasn’t the only problem.

“When I was looking for short-term rental properties, the payment situation was a little tough,” Tejada said. Not in Colombia. “

Tejada and her friend ended up booking a hostel called Hi New York City on the Upper West Side, which cost about $55 a night for a bunk room with a shared bathroom. was. Tejada said she considered Airbnb, which has an on-site host, but couldn’t find a suitable option. It’s not the apartment he dreamed of breezed in and out of as if he were a local, but it’s good enough.

People are coming up with their own solutions for short stays. On Instagram, there are accounts like Book That Sublet NYC, where over 4,000 followers tune in to frequently posted daily and weekly sublets, as well as endless “sublets.”Book my apartment!“, or an apartment exchange callout shared on Instagram Stories. And there are long-standing apartment exchange sites like HomeExchange and HomeLink that offer visitors another way to get their foot in the door of a city apartment.

Supporters of the new regulations thought that limiting short-term rentals would bring long-term rentals back onto the market and perhaps help lower rents in the notoriously expensive city. Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA, said after nearly seven months, there was still no widespread impact.

Jonathan Miller, CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, said that although a small number of apartments have returned to the rental market since the law was changed, mortgage rates remain high and mortgage rates are declining. He explained that this is because it has been gradually increasing since its inception. In 2017, prospective buyers refrained from making purchases for the time being, and rents rose.

Parra, a New York University student, doesn’t think the regulations are the most effective way to address New York’s housing crisis. “I don’t understand how this regulation makes sense. Not in terms of relieving the burden of the number of Airbnbs, but considering that New York City is an immigrant city. ‘Is it fair?’ she said.

But Busquets, who will be visiting in September, has seen firsthand the impact of tourism and short-term rentals on the world-renowned destination.

“I come from a city where the Airbnb craziness is actually displacing local residents and people who have lived there for years,” she said. “The owners wanted to keep people who were there just for short-term rentals because it was more profitable.”

Busquets said Airbnb made Barcelona uninhabitable and she eventually left for the suburbs herself. She added: “It’s changed. It’s not the same city it was 10, 15 years ago.”