To Be or Not To Be: Airbnb Regulations throughout New York City and Los Angeles

Abstract

This thesis follows Airbnb listings and regulations throughout New York City and Los Angeles. Throughout the past decade the usage of Airbnbs has increased throughout the world. Cities with higher tourism however have seen a larger increase in the amount of Airbnbs and the impact that they have on the housing and rental market for the individuals living within these cities. Using a most-similar systems design and drawing on Inside Airbnb listing data, the Zillow Observed Rent Index, the New York City Displacement Risk Index, and the Urban Displacement Project typology, this study traces Local Law 18 and the Home Sharing Ordinance throughout three points in time between the years of 2019 and 2025. Through looking at these three periods, the shift in housing supply was observed, along with the market composition restructuring, and the overall changes that occurred in the rental market. Local Law 18 produced a two stage listing decline averaging about -29.1 percent in the pre enforcement period and -15.8 in the post enforcement period. This was something that was absent in Los Angeles where the overall rent decrease of -38.6 is something that happened more from Covid rather than the legislation. Local Law 18 also resulted in a large market composition shift, the amount of listings that were owned by multi listing operators rose from about 25.2 percent to 38.5 percent across New York City, while Los Angeles’s market composition remained largely unchanged. In the post enforcement period New York City’s high displacement neighborhoods grew 1.9 percent more slowly than low displacement neighborhoods, a reversal of the pre enforcement pattern when high tourism neighborhoods had outpaced low tourism neighborhoods by about 4.5 percent. The overall same was not seen in Los Angeles. These findings support the idea that enforcement intensity is important when it comes to regulations that are there to help with the short term rental market and proper enforcement is necessary when trying to restructure the short term rental market as can be seen throughout this study.