One reason you should not rent a short term apartment:

** it may violate leases and condo/co-op rules


If you rent a condo/co-op you run the risk of being discovered and put out on the street.

Just because you rent from vrbo, homeaway or another rental agency does not mean that it is legal.

"I spoke with the woman renting the unit and she actually owns the building"

I think the building has to be classified by the Department of Buildings as a building that is allowed short term rentals. You can go the DOB and put in the address and see what it says.

How poised is the 18 year old to cope with the possibilities of a problem?

Is the woman renting the studio charging state and city sales tax? If not, it is probably illegal.

vjpblovesitaly - just out of curiosity, why are you so sure that is not legal?

I would imagine, ecoli70, because there are so few places in NYC that are legal rentals. There has been quite a bit of information about apartment rental scams in NYC on these boards and in the newspapers. Some unfortunate travelers have lost all of their deposits and payments in these scams or have been turned out of their "rentals" during their stays.

"vjpblovesitaly - just out of curiosity, why are you so sure that is not legal?"

How does "Doesn't mean it was legal" = sure that it wasn't?

ecoli70, out of curiosity, did you get charged state and city sales tax on top of the rental price for that apartment you rented?

Is she staying there with her friends? Do you realize this is not a doorman building (if it was, I'm sure it would mention that on VRBO). Has she been to NYC before?

That will be a busy week. Public schools are off. They'll be lots of crowds everywhere.

(BTW, my son is also a freshman at UDel).

JWSL, I notice from your other posts that you will be out of the country during this time. Does your daughter have a relative or family friend she could contact just in case there any issues, whether it be regarding this apartment rental of anything else. Is she friendly with any of the fellow UDel'ers who live in the city or anyone else living here? Having an 18 year old navigate NYC on their own for a week, takes quite the responsible and secure kid. I live here and I would have 2nd thoughts about leaving my kids home alone for a week at age 18, and they are good, level-headed kids who know their way around here and know tons of people who live here, including the neighbors in our building (although I would probably do it if they were comfortable with the idea and such a situation came up).

Mclaurie's rec of a hostel I think is a good one, and there is definitely a hostel in the chelsea area (near the apartment). At a hostel they'd be with other similarly aged kids. My daughter did the hostel thing in Europe and had a great time, and met all kinds of interesting people.

Hotels in NYC generally reguire you to be at last 21 to book a room. Whether or not they really cehk, I don't know. There are some that definitely don't, but they tend to be the lower end ones.

Hijacking alittle bit...

So I just started looking to get some information for friends about rental apartments in NYC for a vacation and have just discovered all these postings about scams/illegal vrbo etc.

For example I really liked this one

http://www.vrbo.com/my/195988

I have been reviewing the boards a bit so I know about radio city and affina - but I was looking for a little more space for $$ for this family of four.

Is there an agency that screens and manages apts beyond the hotel/apt model where smaller and more expensive?

Sigh...any agency that "screens" apts. does so for their own personal financial gain--to rent them and make a commission, NOT for your benefit. They can say whatever they want about how legal or beautiful the place is, but it doesn't make it either accurate or legal. Since we've said at least a million times there are very few buildings in NYC that will allow any short term rentals of under a month

1) to protect both the safety and security of the permanent tenants of the building as well as protecting their ability to live in "peace" without a lot of noise

2) to protect NYers from having good apartments stock-piled by unscrupulous landlords/owners so they can rent them out for a lot more per night than they'd get on the open market per month

3) to protect the city of NY from losing the taxes they collect from hotels & b & b's to help run the city.

Despite all this, people continue to insist they're going to rent an apartment. There is NO reason why NYers should help anyone find what is essentially a black market apartment that will harm themselves. Period, end of story.

Now, I will tell you Affinia is running a sale of their 2 bedroom 2bathroom apts. at the Eastgate Tower thru June 30 here. http://affinia.com/Special.aspx?name...oom-Suite-Deal

PS there are MANY more places than Affinia & Radio City apts. that have 1 & 2 bedroom apts. or suites. If you want help in finding something legal, post the dates of travel and their budget. Places like jacksbandb.com, beaconhotel.com, milburnhotel.com on the upper west side are great for a family near the Museum of Natural History and Central Park.

Thanks mclaurie - I don't want anyone to help me do anything illegal or black market. In fact in reading all these posts I got more that they were "scams" not necessarily illegal, a important distinction. One spends time looking at VRBO - like I have for many other vacations in other parts of the country with great success - something I might have totally executed on without a question - and so only by looking on FODORS do I see that this is not a good idea.....I don't want to suggest I am trying to get around anything, I just wanted to make sure I was getting this right - because it is different than in other places and VRBO NYC rentals is so robust! There is nothing to make me to think this is wrong or illegal. I would expect that an agency would have some interest financially - Many cities have short term rentals as an option so I was trying to figure that out - even if I had to pay a fee, but of course not to do anything illegal.

THanks for the other ideas.

The NYC apartment market is differnt than the rest of the country.

A huge portion is either co-ops (almost unkown elsewhere) and condos - and the owners of those apartments don;t want transients they haven;t approved in the buildings when they've paid many hundreds of thousands and often millions of dollars for an apartment withh peace, quiet and neighbors they know.

the rental market is differnt in that a large number of apartment are either rent-controlled or rent-stabilized (that is, the tenants are paying sub-market rents to allow the landlords tax abatements) and every landlord wants to get those tenants out and raise the rents to market value. Almost every lease bans tenants from sub leases not approved by the landlord (who won't approve short term - or many long-term sublets - they would rther the tenant leave).

So - for a variety of reasons almost all short-term rental in the city are illegal. The vacationers might well not be found. But if they are found - in a condo or coop they woud be trespassing - and could be summarily removed. If a landlord found them the legal tenant might lose their lease - although the landlord probably wouldn't do anything - the vacationer would still be technically trespassing.

There are a lot of listings on VRBO - I don't know which/how many are scams - but I'm confident most re illegal. The chances of a vacationer being thrown into the street are small - but they do exist. (In the building I live in - a co-op - we would call the police to have the trespassers removed, although none of our residents has tried this yet. One did sublet illegally long-term and we forced her to cancel the lease and remove the illegal tenants, whom we had not approved - and who were a PIA - parents and 2 kids in a one-bedroom apartment and the kids playing in the public corridors when it rained.)

There is one situation I can think of when it would be legal to rent an apartment in the short term: When the apartment is the property of the person who owns the entire building. This would usually be true in smaller buildings that only had a few apartments. Such building owners are setting the rules for the rentals and can choose to do as they like about short-term rentals. These types of situations are few and far between in Manhattan.

Any building with more than six apartments would probably fall into one of the categories that nytraveler describes above.

<<<There is one situation I can think of when it would be legal to rent an apartment in the short term>>>

Actually, that would mean it's okay with the building owner to do short-term rentals, and it may not be a scam, but it doesn't mean it's legal. Presumably the City of New York regulates short-term rentals so they can collect transient taxes. Unless the people who do short-term rentals in a building they own pay those taxes, the rental is still probably illegal. The difference is you likely won't be turned in :-)

sf7307, you are correct. they need to be licensed and collect state, city, and transient taxes.

Thought all of you readers might like an update? My daughter stayed at the VRBO apt. and had a great time! She did have a cousin she could contact in case of problems.I was out of the country and unable to read all of the input from Fodor readers, and perhaps that was a good thing. However, hindsight is 20/20 and I guess we lucked out. Thank you everyone for your insightful comments. Don't know if we will do this again....

Oh, I'm sure you'll do it again. I have no doubt, in fact.

I guess you could say you 'lucked out', but I strongly feel you made the wrong decision. I know I'm not alone in this.