New York City is working with booking service platforms such as Airbnb to enforce what is effectively a ban on any short-term apartment rentals not registered with the city. But it doesn't mean the enforcement has totally removed short-term rental options.

New York City adopted the Short-Term Rental Registration Law at the beginning of 2022, but it wasn't enforced until Sept. 5. The law requires short-term rental hosts to register with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement (OSE). Also, it prohibits booking service platforms like Airbnb from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals.

In a statement, the city said the OSE is “collaborating with the booking platforms to ensure they are using the city's verification system” so that companies ultimately “stop processing unverified transactions.”

To qualify as hosts moving forward, there are quite a few restrictions. Those include not renting out an entire apartment or home. Also, hosts must be present during a guest’s stay. While guests may see fewer options when booking a trip to New York, they will face no legal consequences if they find one. But hosts face fines ranging from $100 to $5,000, depending o🦋n the violation. 

Short-term rental services like Airbnb (ABNB), VRBO, owned by Expedia Group Inc. (EXPE), and Booking.com (BKNG) have become popular alternatives to traditional hotels in recent years. The premise of these sites is for 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:loc♛al𓂃 people to rent their space out to guests, allowing them to earn additional income while guests tend to pay lower rates than they would at a hotel. 

Airbnb called New York City’s regulation a “de facto ban,” claiming that short-term rentals “do not contribute to the housing availability or affordability problems” and help the local economy by encouraging tourism. Airbnb and hosts in New York City filed a lawsuit against the city, which was ultimately dismissed.

There are more than seven million active listings in more than 100,000 cities worldwide, according to Airbnb. New York City had more than 39,000 listings as of Sept. 8, 2023, making it the city with the second-most Airbnb listings in the United States. Los Angeles has the most Airbnbs of any American city, with almost 45,000 listings. 

New York City is not the only metropolis to crack down on Airbnbs within the U.S. Despite Los Angeles having the most Airbnb listings of any city in the U.S., the Southern California city began enforcing a Home-Sharing Ordinance requiring hosts to register with the city and guests to pay tourist tax fees. Similarly, San Francisco requires that short-term rental hosts are certified by the city and live at the property for at least 275 days a year.

Airbnb's share price, which was up more than 2% in midday trading, didn't seem to be impacted by New York City’s crackdown, though the company did see an uptick last week after news broke that the bookin♐g platform would be added to the S&P 500.