Skift grip
Platforms and hosts will get some breathing room thanks to the city in the first few days after the registration rules come into effect. There are enough moving parts to avoid most short-term fines.
Denis Schaal
If you search for short-term rentals on Booking.com, Vrbo and, to a lesser extent, Airbnb in New York for stays after Tuesday’s deadline requiring hosts to be registered, you will still find many listings that seem break the rules. .
But New York City officials told Booking.com in phone conversations that the city’s Office of Special Enforcement will not initially crack down on platforms that work with the city to enforce enforcement. compliance, Skift learned.
At the same time, the New York City Public Defender’s Office informed some hosts that the OSE will not be issuing fines to unregistered hosts when the new rules begin to apply unless the violations are ” flagrant”, such as hosting large groups of people.
Booking.com’s API integration with the city is expected to go live for the first time on September 5, the registration deadline, but it won’t be fully functional until at least a few days after that. The required API would allow Booking to submit their New York guest information to the Special Enforcement Office to facilitate the check-in verification process. Platforms face heavy fines for non-compliance, as do hosts.
“We work in conjunction with New York and, of course, strive to adhere to the parameters and deadlines set,” said a spokesperson for parent company Booking Holdings.
Some of the implementation challenges are actually on the city side. As of August 28, the OSE had reviewed only about a quarter of the 3,250 host applications it had received and approved only 257. New York City had about 9,500 active host listings. shared spaces on Airbnb – the biggest player in short-term rentals. in the city – as early as July, according to AirDNA.
Skift estimates that Airbnb could lose at least 70% of its 23,000 active listings as of September 5. Many of these hosts are ineligible to register because their properties are entire homes and not shared spaces, and the city lags far behind in processing applications for shared space host registrations.
Hosts staying in a shared space can sign up to host up to two guests for less than 30 days per booking. Bedroom doors cannot be locked.
Of the three major short-term rental booking platforms, Airbnb seems to have done the best job preparing for the September 5 date. It is also the one with the most stakes given its presence on the market.
Airbnb said it has blocked booking calendars from September 5 for unregistered hosts, as well as hosts of entire homes in the city, unless stays are 30 days or longer, which is allowed and not allowed. does not require registration.
A search of Airbnb for stays in New York starting Sept. 5 turned up a few apartments, but mostly hotels showed up, along with apartments and entire homes in places like Newark, Paterson and Bloomfield, New Jersey.
A search of Booking.com for a stay in New York from September 7-14 revealed 144 entire homes and apartments, all of which appear to conflict with the new law.
A similar search on Vrbo produced a sporadic number of whole homes. Vrbo doesn’t have a big presence in the Big Apple.
Spokespersons for OSE, Vrbo and Airbnb did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.
