My landlord had tried to sell the home a year ago. There were realtors and prospective buyers coming into the house. I'm staring at them talk about how they're going to turn my home into an Airbnb and displace me and my family. (Narrator)
Like many places in America, Rene Mejia's hometown of Newburgh, New York, is rapidly getting more expensive. This is like the neighborhood I wanted to highlight that they call the Newburgh Renaissance. $15 burgers, like, $8 drinks and stuff like that. (Narrator)
One force helping drive this change in Newburgh, as elsewhere, is one of Silicon Valley's darlings — a company bringing in record profits while driving up rental and home prices: Airbnb. But across the country, the Wild West, regulation-free environment that allowed Airbnb to turn millions of affordable homes and apartments into short-term rentals is changing, as communities target Airbnb and push cities to crack down. In Bozeman, tensions are heating up over short-term rentals. Dallas, Philadelphia, New Orleans just passed recent regulations. New York is going to begin enforcing a new law that regulates Airbnb rentals. Over 20,000 listings that disappear after today. (Narrator)
But not all policies are created equal, and Airbnb is not going quietly. As we keep walking, we're going to see more of where it's like slowly transitioning into more gentrification. There's now a pasta shop, there's talks about a new coffee shop, there's a hair salon where a cut's going to cost you like $80 to $100. The pasta shop is only really open during lunch time, like, for 2 hours. A big thing that a lot of folks like to say is that our city needs this development in order to, like, increase revenue. But when a lot of these areas aren't very friendly or open to the actual people that live here, who is it actually helping? We're just talking about housing and, like, the issues going on in the city. I actually grew up here. There's a lot of new businesses and stuff like that, too, which is good, you know? But, the housing isn't — isn’t all that great. Like, if you make minimum wage, you probably have to have like, two or three jobs, honestly just to keep up with, like, rent. We’re going to be having a meeting later where we're actually going to be talking about what we can do as, you know, residents of the city of Newburgh to make sure there's more protection for folks like us who've lived here their whole lives. We have housing shortages nationwide. Newburgh is no different. I think he's very right. There is a housing shortage, and Airbnbs are definitely playing a role in that. (Narrator)
The Hudson Valley, which includes Newburgh, is one of Airbnb's fastest growing markets. Airbnb argues that they're not a factor in housing getting more expensive. But just a few miles away from where Rene lives in Newburgh, there's someone whose work undermines that narrative. If we look at the data for, for Newburgh — 114 Airbnb listings. 99 of them are entire homes. Only 15 are private rooms. Between 2016 and 2023, the number of Airbnb listings grew 1,000%. (Narrator)
Murray Cox is a researcher and data activist, founder of Inside Airbnb. Since 2015, he has been tracking the company, using data from Airbnb listings worldwide to analyze the company's effect on housing. (Murray)
Airbnb impacts long-term rentals, basically by taking housing off the market, and so there are pretty long-held rules that if you take housing off the market that's going to push the price of rentals up. In New York City, there was one study done that New Yorkers were paying $616 million more because of Airbnb, and another study that said, on average, New Yorkers were paying about $384 per year more in rent because of Airbnb. And that's like an Airbnb tax all of the renters are paying. (Narrator)
Airbnb has argued that the housing market is complex, and that short-term rentals have become a convenient scapegoat. It's true that the housing crisis predates Airbnb and that America needs to build much more housing. (Murray)
Newburgh has a very low vacancy rate, so 3.6%. Anything below five is a housing emergency, and Newburgh just did declare a housing emergency. (Narrator)
But construction takes years. Cities like Newburgh could free up existing housing right now with regulation. (Murray)
If you compare the Airbnb listings to Newburgh’s entire housing stock, it’s only .8%. So that might not seem like a lot but if you compare it to the vacant and available for rent units, it makes up almost 40% of that figure. So, if these units were returned to the market, the vacancy rate would jump 40%. (Narrator)
Across the country, more and more cities have banned or strictly regulated Airbnb in recent years. One study, of Irvine, California, found that the city's short-term rental ban lowered rents by about 3%. Residents in dozens of other places, including Newburgh, are pushing their local governments
to implement new bans. (Rene)
So what we're pushing our city council, is to put a ban on non-owner occupied vacation rentals. We are trying to make sure that we don't affect ma and pa folks that are trying
to rent out an extra bedroom, but we want to go after folks that don't live in this city, outside investors. I think generally cities are moving towards regulation, and relatively restrictive regulations — the whole U.S. is in a housing crisis. Here we connected the tourism
market with the housing market. (Narrator)
But as we enter a new era of short-term rental regulation, Airbnb is working overtime to protect its profits. I think that we've become a very important part of local economies. So, we're always going to be regulated, but I think things are actually calmer than they have been in the past, notwithstanding a couple of specific cities. (Narrator)
Airbnb had its first profitable year in 2022, bringing in $1.9 billion. In the last two years, the company spent a record amount lobbying the federal government — over $1 million per year. The company has also mounted extensive local influence campaigns, has been accused of organizing its hosts to lobby local governments, and has sued cities that enact restrictions, most recently, New York. New tonight Airbnb will have to abide by the city's new rules on short-term rentals. Today, a judge dismissed its lawsuit against the city. (Narrator)
The company also has a long history of denying jurisdictions the data necessary to enforce regulations. (Murray)
Airbnb is not usually cooperative with cities. They won’t give data. Sometimes there will be an agreement to give data, and Airbnb will withdraw it if the city is considering regulations. Short-term rentals in the United States, it's usually regulated at the local level. There's thousands, if not tens of thousands, of these conversations happening throughout the U.S. (Murray)
Seven years ago, Newburgh had ten Airbnb listings. Last year, there were 114. What we don't want is outside investors buying up dozens of homes and apartments to turn them into full-time, year-round Airbnbs with no permanent residents. Please keep addressing the housing crisis. Please listen to what we say. If we were to win a vacation rental ban in the city of Newburgh, I definitely think that it would set an example and make it easier for other cities in the area to start doing this. (Narrator)
In the end, Rene and his family were able to keep their home, but only after negotiating an $800 monthly rent increase. (Rene)
My parents are both immigrants. They don't have a lot of the skills that make a lot of money in this country. And so sometimes it does come to me, having to try and pitch in a little bit more. But it allowed us to remain in the home together. I get to spend a lot of time with my mom and dad that I know that they don't get to spend with their parents because of the sacrifices that they've made. And if they can't be with their family, I, you know, would rather keep our family together as long as we can.
