Comptroller's Report Finds Massive 'Airbnb Effect' in New York City

Christine Maurus reports on the findings of the study, which isolated the Airbnb effect in the rental housing market by "[comparing] the growth in what rents would have been without listings on the site to what they actually were."

The report operates from the premise that when owners rent their apartments for short-term rentals, they effectively take those apartments of the market, "reducing the supply of housing and pushing up the cost of what remains," according to Maurus. "For each 1 percent of all residential units in a neighborhood listed on Airbnb, rents in that neighborhood went up 1.58 percent, Stringer said. The estimated $616 million impact is for 2016 alone."

A statement from Airbnb Inc. issued a rebuttal of the report, finding issues with the methodology.