Canada to USA to Mexico, travelling from Australia!

You can still stay in an AirBnB, you just cannot rent out the entire apartment. The law exists for several reasons, the main one being a severe shortage of housing for people who actually live in NYC and the second being what I call a "quality of life" issue. Think about it, you live and work in NYC, work hard and pay your taxes, maybe you are raising a family there. Now all of a sudden some neighbors start renting out their apartments and all of a sudden you have strangers coming in and out of your building at all hours, maybe making more noise than normal, how would you like it?
It only surprises me that more residents do not turn in violators to the authorities and get the illegal rentals heavily fined or shut down.

Why would visitors be more nuisance than other residents?
Why would someone expect to dictate who can stay in a neighbouring property that they don't own?

Quoting AndyF

Why would visitors be more nuisance than other residents?
Why would someone expect to dictate who can stay in a neighbouring property that they don't own?

Andy, this is the USA. People rent AirBnBs just to have parties in them. Just a couple weeks ago there was a shootout at an AirBnB and it turned out that the people had been renting it as a party venue. There had been complaints but freedom won and nothing was done. Then there was a disaster and they finally decided to make a few rules. If you live in a nice quiet neighborhood and some idiot starts renting out to people who invite 100 of their closest friends (or more) for all-night loud parties that spill over into the streets and they dump things in your yard, you get upset. Seems normal to me . . . Many of these idiots advertise their parties on Facebook, Twitter or other social media and they don't have crowds; they have mobs.

Anyway, that's why since you asked.

To the rest of the world the USA's approach to guns looks insane. If the problem is one of shootings at AirBnbs, the solution is not to ban the AirBnbs.

I hadn't considered AirBnbs being abused for parties. The ones I've used have been suitable for a couple; if someone has a large enough venue for a house party I think they'd be sensible to not take single night bookings - and doesn't Airbnb use any sort of user track record of feedback to assist hosts in only accepting bookings from someone with a history?

Being able to do what you wish with your property seems to me a basic freedom. What happened to the so-called "land of the free"? Maybe that just applies to guns.

Andy F,
We have zoning laws, so single family residence can remain just that, vs multi-use. I used to live in Manhattan Beach, CA and groups of college students would rent out a nice house on the Strand (beachfront walkway) for a week or two and throw parties almost every night that ran late, disturbed the neighbors, throw beer cans in the gardens of the neighbors and urinate in same. So Manhattan Beach has now banned short term rentals along with several other adjacent beach cities.
Too many people that rent these houses feel entitled (I paid $XXX per night).

Please be aware that it might be difficult, if not impossible, to secure a mortgage loan if a condominium apartment building's units are 50 percent or more rented. Lenders apparently believe that too many rentals can cause property values to decline.

Please also be aware that homeowners associations can restrict the number of rentals or ban them altogether.

The number of communities severely curtailing or banning short-term rentals continues to rise; and it isn't only a U.S. phenomenon.

I've enjoyed short-term rentals, particularly serviced apartments in Australia and elsewhere.

Quoting AndyF

I hadn't considered AirBnbs being abused for parties. The ones I've used have been suitable for a couple; if someone has a large enough venue for a house party I think they'd be sensible to not take single night bookings - and doesn't Airbnb use any sort of user track record of feedback to assist hosts in only accepting bookings from someone with a history?

A couple of months ago there was a radio interview with this local celebrity who working part time in Los Angeles California has a house there. He said when he comes back to Australia he rents out his LA house and this year when he came home he started getting calls from his neighbours complaining about crazy parties with loud music, cars blocking the road and people throwing up in the neighbours front yard. After talking to his real estate agent they found out that the man the house had been rented to was listing the property on AirBnb as a "Party House" for $USD 2000 a night. Apparently AirBnb was very unhelpful with getting the property unlisted. You would think AirBnb would at least check ownership of the property and whether the person listing the property has authority to do so. Apart from this story there are others I have heard, some that have ended up in court that seems to suggest that AirBnb doesn't do much in regulating.

Quoting AndyF

Being able to do what you wish with your property seems to me a basic freedom. What happened to the so-called "land of the free"? Maybe that just applies to guns.

One of the problems is there are comercial corporations now that buy up whole apartment blocks and then run them like hotels through AirBnb. As a result it does take away living space for locals, it drives up the price of rent and then locals wanting a better quality of life have no choice but to leave. Doing what you want with your property is fine when it is your home but when it is a business then things start to get murkey because when do you say it has crossed a line from residential to comercial. At what point to you start enforcing rules and regulations pertaining to the comerical use of a property?

Quoting jasminekiddey

Hello!

... Some of the main cities we are wanting to see are montreal, new york, washington dc, nashville, houston and new orleans. ...

I agree with the others that I would eliminate Houston and Nashville. And also that you can use public transportation rather than driving in NYC and DC. And that taxes and tips are difficult for visitors.

But the other problem is that NYC, and DC are quite expensive places to live or stay. You want to be careful not to pick the Airbnb place just by the price. I was in correspondence with someone who wanted to see DC and Baltimore and he picked a cheap place to stay in Glen Burnie. Anyone who knows Maryland at all knows that Glen Burnie has nothing to recommend it as a hub for sightseeing without a car as there is little or no public transportation there.

I think if you spent a week in Montreal, and about 5 days in NY, and a week in the DC area (including Baltimore and maybe Annapolis) you would have two weeks at add in another location. You could fly to New Orleans - which is another place where a car would be a handicap - and after 4 days there, rent a car and drive from there - you could see the Bayou country - go to Baton Rouge and Dallas, or go to Houston, or you could do a road trip where you drove to Memphis and over to Nashville.

[ Edit: Edited on 25-Dec-2019, 17:18 GMT by greatgrandmaR ]

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