News, New York passes ban on short-term apartment rentals.

[tpk-nyc]

It's a problem now because many people (particularly foreigners) bought condos at the peak of the market and can't afford them. They're trying to make money by renting them out. However this takes thousands of apartments off the market for people who actually live here. Also, no one wants to live in a building with a mini hotel on their floor. Those "tenants" tend to make a lot of noise and don't respect the building. Apartment buildings are not set up with security the way hotels are and the owners are often out of town, or at least in a different building. If there's a problem the building management has very little recourse besides calling the police.

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by 540_804

I think Paris and several other cities have similar laws in place.

For example, in Paris its not uncommon for wealthy foreigners to own a place that they use as a pied-a-terre or vacation house for a few weeks out of the year and then rent out the place for the rest of the year to vacationers/travelers.

I think the law makers in Paris argued that this practice was contributing to the housing shortage in the city and the pressuring higher prices (thus pricing many people out of neighborhoods). They estimated that 10s of thousands of apartments were illegal short-term rentals in Paris. The Parisian law is a lot more strict than the NY one, though; I think 1 year leases are the minimum for residential properties...they'd have to get it zoned commercial to offer shorter leases (rezoning in Paris is notoriously difficult).

I guess because I'm not from NY I don't really have much of an opinion on this. On the one hand I'm all for property owner's rights: do with it what you please, within reason. But I do understand why many like the idea. Living next to an illegal hotel would probably change your views on the law.

But, as someone else mentioned, working around those laws would be pretty simple.

Amsterdam has an even more stupid law.

A'dam besteelt huiseigenaar - Binnenland - Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Amsterdam robs second home owner

AMSTERDAM- Maintaining a small second home to some tens of square meters in Amsterdam is prohibited . The capital has recently opened a witch hunt owners of so-called pied - à - terres and ordered them to their apartment a few hundred euros per month available for the social rental stock.


This while buying a house in Amsterdam soon released over 200,000 euros , which means that the maandelijkse hypotheeklasten reach more than a thousand euros a month. That is far above the maximum price of 548 euros that the municipality determines .

Who does not cooperate , can expect to see a penalty , amounting to many thousands of euros . Professors , architects and executives from industry will be driven out as the city , shows a stack of letters in the hands of informed De Telegraaf.

click on the link to read the entire article....

That is how a socialized country "awards" people who worked hard and have a nice 2nd place for their kids, or friends to stay....

These little apartments are very expensive to buy and than the government decides the rental price even if the owner doesn't want to rent it out. This has been happening for years now and some students have moved in, which is not even the worst (they don't mainain the place very well..) but in many cases people moved in and got their family abroad to move in with them who are staying there illegally and live in a top location where the owner paid hundreds of thousands for...in the middle of Amsterdam.

Isn't it great to work hard and than getting robbed by the government