It's still illegal.

And even if that didn't stop me I would still do due diligence - (get land line phone number, who in the building to see if there is a problem, check references and find out if you need to hide from doorman/super or neighbors) and pay only with a credit card.

Lots of sites list illegal rentals. The city has other things to do than look at all of them. But if they get complaints they have no hesitation in acting.

The problem occurs if someone in the building - doorman, super, or other tenant, realizes that you are illegally renting a property and makes a complaint. If you are not a legal tenant - or a legitimate (NOT paying) guest of a legitimate tenant - you may have to leave on the spot (since actually you are trespassing).

Last year the city closed down a hostel about which they had lots of complaints - and in the middle of the night they shut it down and all of the guests had to pack their things and leave (as the place was padlocked) and find another place to stay.

DeeNYC: airbnb doesn't <i>rent</i> apartments. They <u>list</u> apartments that individuals want to rent out - almost all of which are illegal.

I was curious about airbnb, so looked at it. What I found was a private bedroom in an inhabited apartment in New York -- someone letting someone stay in a guest bedroom. I'm really not sure that's quite illegal. Surely people are allowed to let a friend spend the night with them in their own apartment. Just something I wouldn't be interested in and only one step up from couch surfing.

People are certainly allowed to have relatives or friends stay with them in their apartment for a limited amount of time - but for free. If the guests are unknown to them and they are renting the room out for cash - that IS illegal.

(Naturally renters can do this - but if they have a continuing parade of different relatives and friends visiting them from all different parts of the world - it is at least possible that a neighbor - or the doorman or super - would catch on and report them. Possibly leading to large fines for the renters and removal of "relatives" as trespassers.)

It's also almost certainly against their lease with the landlord or the proprietary lease if the building is a co-op or a condo.

If the renter owns the entire building - then they are allowed to rent a room under whatever circumstances they want. But, as you can imagine, the number of people in Manhattan doing this with spare rooms in their multimillion dollar townhouse is quite limited.

It may be limited but there is still a decent supply of townhouse owners that rent out rooms, or apartments, and list such rentals on the usual rental sites. I happen to know three owners of such properties--one in the East Village, one in the West Village who runs a B&B, and one in Harlem. Two of these owners use the rental income to help defray mortgage/building maintenance costs and the third lives on the rental income that the property generates.

The acquaintance who has owned a townhouse on Horatio Street (West Village) for many decades runs an oft-reviewed B&B at that location. She seems to have no trouble attracting clients.

I think that there is quite a large pool of would-be renters who are not deterred by renting someplace for a few days that may or not be legal. The chances that any of these renters will be hauled off to jail, or "caught" is slim to none, from what I've read. I'm not taking sides here, just commenting.

It is illegal to rent out the apt, not to pay to stay in an illegal rental. So no tourist is ever going to be arrested for renting an illegal Airbnb apt. And it's only illegal if you accept payment. The real problem for the tourists is if something happens. Then they are out of options. No refunds, no option but to try to find a last minute hotel room. And there are a lot of scams out there.

There are still a lot of illegal rental apts because there are a lot of greedy landlords. I see lots f them---primarily European tourists---in my new neighborhood.

Now, lets please let this years old thread die.

No one has ever suggested that would be renters are hailed off to jail.

Not even the owner of illegal hostels are hauled off to jail. They just have their property closed and have to pay large (tens of thousands of $) fines.

The risk for the tourist is arriving and finding no place to stay and having to find one on the spot - when the best deals are long gone - often at high prices.

Also - perhaps there are some people who prefer not to break the law.

Thanks everybody for all your comments on this topic. They have been very useful!

Doug, why should we be told by an editor to let the thread die when a question was asked above on January 3 about the same VRBO listing in the OP? That is a legit reason to answer now and not destroy or let the thread die. The new poster deserves an answer as much as the OP.