Analizing the City Exploring the Landscape of Short-Term Rentals in New York Introduction to Urban Data and Informatics | Fall 2023 Overview
Research Questions
Findings
New York City is currently experiencing significant changes in the short-term rental landscape. It is one of the most touristy cities in the world, attracting visitors with its museums, entertainment, restaurants and commerce.
What is the statistical correlation between tourism attractions, neighborhood median income, and short term rental supplies in New York City and how do these factors impact the short-term rental market in different boroughs of the city?
Time Series Map Showing Airbnb Listings From December 2022 to November 2023
In 2022, the city welcomed 56.7 million visitors, and the forecast for 2023 projects an increase to 63.3 million visitors. The tourism industry accounts for approximately 7% of the private sector employment and indirectly supported 376,800 jobs in 2019. Additionally, the hotel and accommodation sector provided 52,000 jobs and around $3.6 billion in wages in 2019, representing 18.4% of employment.
How does the enactment of Short-Term Rental Registration Law is changing the landscape of short term rental supply?
The law mandates that short-term rental hosts register with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) and prohibits booking service platforms (such as Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, and others) from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals. It is important to note that short-term rentals are defined as stays lasting 30 days or less.
February 2023
March 2023
April 2023
May 2023
June 2023
July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2023
November 2023
Hypothesis Short-term rentals are located in higher median income neighborhoods Short-term rentals are located nearby tourism attractions With the enactment of regulations on short term rentals in NYC, the supply of short term rentals will significantly decreased and nightly price between renting Airbnb and a hotel room will even out
Methodology Points of Attraction
The Short-Term Rental Registration Law also requires OSE to maintain a Prohibited Buildings list. Which includes buildings where short-term rentals are prohibited, either by law such as NYCHA or rent-regulated buildings, or lease and occupancy agreements.
Number of Aibnb Listings with Minimum Nights Stay (3 Days)
Booking
Airbnb
Census Tracts
ACS
Scrape data with BeautifulSoup
Filter short-term rentals with <3 days minimum stay
Table Join
Clean data with pandas
Booking nightly price
Airbnb listings dataset
Count of Exempt and non-Exempt Licenses of Airbnb Listings Nov 2023
Count
New York City’s Short-Term Rental Registration Law is part of the New York City Administrative Code, under Chapters 31 and 32 of Title 26 (“Housing and Buildings”). The Law was created through the passage of Local Law 18 of 22.
January 2023
Number of Listings
Nevertheless, the current housing shortage crisis has prompted the city to develop new policies to address the 340,00 housing shortage, with a particular focus on affordable housing. In this regard, the current administration ectacted Local Law 18, known as the Short-Term Rental registration Law, on January 9th, 2022, which stated its enforcement in September 2023.
December 2022
Census tract with median income data
The Short-Term Rental Registration Law in not allowed for: • New York City Housing Authority (NYCH�) apartments • Rent-controlled apartments • Rent-stabilized apartments • Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) units These scenarios significantly impact the tourism industry in the city, particularly the hotels and accommodation sectors. As a result, this research project aims to explore and understand how the policy frameworks for short-term rentals affect the city’s landscape by examining data from before the law was enacted in 2022 and after it was implemented in 2023. January 2022 Adoption of Local Law 18
February 2023 Publication of the Rules for the program
September 2023 Initial Phase of the Enforcement
Boxplot of price range
Licence bar chart
Mapping change distribution of Airbnb Months
Non-Exempt Licences: 480
750 feet buffer of Airbnb listings
We developed a time series illustrating the distribution changes of Airbnb listings in New York City from December 2022 to November 2023.
Count overlapping geometries
Half a mile buffer of tourism attractions
Denstity map of Airbnb listings clipped by tourist attractions buffers
Density map of Airbnb listings
Exempt Licences: 2,402
Half a mile buffer of median income census tracts
Denstity map of Airbnb listings clipped by median income CT buffers
Preliminary findings indicate a substantial decrease in the number of Airbnb listings in New York after the enforcement of Local Law 18 in September 2023. The most notable change occurred between August and September 2023, with listings decreasing by more than half. This downward trend persisted until October 2023.
Examining the license types of listings, only Class "B" buildings are expected to possess exempt licenses. Class "B" encompasses hotels, lodging houses, rooming houses, boarding houses, boarding schools, furnished room houses, lodgings, club houses, and college and school dormitories. Contrary to this expectation, we discovered that a majority of short-term Airbnbs are listed with exempt licenses, despite being private apartments. Furthermore, many of these listings are managed by property management companies that hold licenses for short-term rentals. Examples of one of these property management companies is RoomPicks.
Catharina Utami (cku2103) | Inneke Rachmawati (ir2453) | Camila Botero (cb3785)
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