These Bed-Stuy blocks lost 80% of their Airbnbs after NYC’s short-term rental crackdown

WNYC News

A year after New York City began cracking down on illegal short-term apartment rentals, the number of Airbnb listings in the five boroughs plummeted by 85%, according to a Gothamist review of listings posted on the vacation rental giant’s website.

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Fewer than 2,000 apartments in the five boroughs remain on the home-sharing site — down from more than 12,000 last August, just before the start of a new enforcement policy that effectively blocks payment for most units that are available to rent for less than 30 days.

The reduction is especially evident along the leafy brownstone blocks of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, once a short-term listings hotbed. Nearly 1,000 apartments in the neighborhood were bookable on Airbnb for weekend jaunts and other short stays in the summer of 2023. Now, just 112 are still listed as short-term rentals, the data shows.

The new analysis of a 24-block section of Bed-Stuy that once boasted the highest concentration of Airbnb listings in the city shows a partial shift from short-term rentals to longer-term leases in the area — the goal of many supporters of stricter enforcement, who say the temporary lodgings were taking much-needed housing off the market. But many apartments in the historically Black neighborhood, where rents have spiked in recent years, still remain on Airbnb with 30-day minimum stay requirements that comply with city law.Read more on Gothamist.com