Study Analyses the Airbnb Effect in the New York City Housing Market

Alastair Boone shares news of a recent report [pdf] by David Wachsmuth, a professor of Urban Planning at McGill University, that "zeroes in on New York City in an effort to answer the question of exactly what home sharing is doing to the city."

By home sharing, Boone mostly refers to Airbnb, which has been the subject of many previous studies into the impact of short-term rentals on housing markets and the larger economy. Wachsmuth's study focuses on New York City as the third largest and oldest short-term rental market in the world as a case study for the consequences other communities might expect to encounter as short-term rentals gain a larger footprint.

The study did, in fact, find evidence to support the idea that Airbnb "has indeed raised rents, removed housing from the rental market, and fueled gentrification," according to Boone. The study also found evidence that many Airbnb hosts are operating in defiance of the Airbnb's "one host, one home" policy is introduced in New York City in 2016. Commercial operators are responsible for many of the negative effects from short-term rentals in New York City, and they're illegal, according to the article.