Short-term rentals in New York City have overtaken the available vacant apartments, leading to renters facing a pinch while looking for space in the housing market that is currently heated up.
The surging demand for apartments
The total number of short-term active rentals in the five boroughs listed on Vrbo from Expedia Group Inc and Airbnb Inc. has crossed 22,000 as per third-party tracker AirDNA.
In the meantime, the rental inventory of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and a part of Queens hovers around 7500, according to Douglas Elliman Real Estate April report. AirDNA defines the active listings as reserved or available on the last day of the month. The median rent in April surged to $3,870 for new leases signed, reflecting how the housing market in Manhattan is getting heated up every month.
As per Bloomberg News, the number of apartments to rent last month was 4,709, down from 20,743 apartments a year earlier. This meant landlords had the upper hand with tenants when negotiating rent deals. According to the appraiser Miller Samuel Inc., the vacancy rate was just about 1.5% in April in Manhattan, the lowest level on record.
While Airbnb focuses on urban markets, its competitor Vrba is present in whole vacation homes. New York has placed restrictions on short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb, requiring them to list data and share with the city to rent out houses for less than 30 days, and a host must also be present.
According to Airbnb, the reality is different than what numbers suggest.
An Airbnb spokesperson said that the data presented gives a narrow outlook considering rental unit availability in only a portion of the city vis a vis the scrapped rentals data for the entire city. The Spokesperson added that the company’s listing supply has come down in the past two years. Most of the listing on Airbnb is concentrated around Manhattan. The earlier data was reported by Curbed, a real estate publication in New York.
