IMDonehere

Unfortunately many people when they travel have the Vegas and Bourbon Street attitude about travel, I can party and throw up where I want, I am on vacation. WOOOOOOOOOO!

How would you like that to be next door to you?

smetz1

There must be two different people posting as IMDonehere on this forum:

Apartment Rentals DC
Posted by: IMDonehere on Aug 27, 14 at 12:04am
Posted in: United States
Tagged: Washington, D.C.
Jump to last reply
Add a Reply
Report Abuse
Print-friendly version

We are now going to DC with another couple next April or May for 4 days. We want to stay in the Penn Quarter for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is one member easily tires and most sights we want to see are in that area, so a place nearby is important. Airbnb has a limited selection, has anyone had luck with other services?

Thank you in advance.

nytraveler

In NYC legitimate tenants - either in co-ops, condos or rental buildings have a right to basic safety and security in their buildings.

Allowing renters to sublet apartments (against their lease with the landlord) or even to rent out individual rooms brings complete strangers into the buildings - with keys or entrance fobs that the legitimate owners/renters may never recover. This illegal subletting puts everyone living in the building at potential risk - which is why most NYers hate htis idea. It is promoted by Air BnB and relatively few tenants who cannot actually afford their apts (or worse sponsors who cannot sell co-ops or rent new apts and illegally rent the apts out short-term.)

There are many hotels available in NYC a wide range of prices - renting apts illegally is simply not necessary.

Sorry - but the safety and security of local residents trumps the desire of tourists for uber cheap housing.

And if one thinks there are too many laws in NYC (these providing for safety of hotel guests with fire laws and others preventing carrying of fire arms) one is free not to visit the city.

smetz1

"Sorry - but the safety and security of local residents trumps the desire of tourists for uber cheap housing.

And if one thinks there are too many laws in NYC (these providing for safety of hotel guests with fire laws and others preventing carrying of fire arms) one is free not to visit the city."

A perfectly reasonable argument, which IMDonehere apparently agrees with. But if you then turn around and seek to rent private apartments for vacations in other cities - legal or not - you're nothing more than a hypocrite.

IMDonehere

My preference was for a hotel but I was over ridden.


At least I do not throw up on other people's shoes.

smetz1

"At least I do not throw up on other people's shoes."

Then of course you can be forgiven.

But it seems reasonable that people who would argue that it's an egregious imposition on permanent residents to rent a vacation apartment in NYC, so egregious in fact that the vacationers should be charged with a crime, should at least be willing to impose the same restriction on themselves when visiting other cities in the US or in Europe.

nytraveler

No one is charging the vacationers with the crime. The crime - and fines - are for those who are renting out illegally.

And why should builders/landlords - who accepted city tax rebates when putting up the building on the basis of keeping apartments for long-term rent regulated tenants - be allowed to instead sublet them illegally and make huge profits to which they are not entitled? I guarantee you they have no intention of repaying the city for all of those tax rebates they accepted out of the hands of the public.

smetz1

Again, all of your arguments are perfectly reasonable & I'm not suggesting otherwise. But I've noticed, when researching information for Europe travel, that you frequently have helpful advice to those searching for apartments in Paris or Rome. If your advice is based on actual experience, and one would hope that it is, then is it not hypocritical to argue that it's wrong to rent an apartment in NYC while doing the same thing in other cities? At least IMDonehere owns up to it.

nytraveler

No - if it's not illegal then there's nothing wrong with it.

Each municipality has the right to make laws based on local conditions and the desires/needs of its citizens. The mayor of NYC is now in the process of organizing a program to increase low/moderate income housing in NYC - by 80,000 units. When so many more are needed seeing any occupied by tourists makes no sense. Perhaps these other cities don;t have such huge shortages - or a commitment to lower cost housing.

IMDonehere

I feel uncomfortable padding through the lobby and the halls where permanent tenants live. I am just a visitor and I hope to conduct myself in a manner that is not intrusive or bothersome.

I grew up in an apartment house and now live in a huge complex in Manhattan. And there are, of course, idiots who are permanent residents, but now management has an agreement with a local university and although most of them of grad students half have the manners of third graders.

The first time I rented an apartment for a vacation was in Barcelona where there was a shared courtyard. That sounds quaint until one husband got home every night at 3 AM drunk and his wife let him her dissatisfaction.

smetz1

"No - if it's not illegal then there's nothing wrong with it."

If this was the extent of your arguments on the subject, then you'd have a leg to stand on. But you posted the following:

"Allowing renters to sublet apartments (against their lease with the landlord) or even to rent out individual rooms brings complete strangers into the buildings - with keys or entrance fobs that the legitimate owners/renters may never recover."

Doesn't this precisely describe what you do when you rent an apartment in Paris or Rome?

"This illegal subletting puts everyone living in the building at potential risk - which is why most NYers hate htis idea. It is promoted by Air BnB and relatively few tenants who cannot actually afford their apts (or worse sponsors who cannot sell co-ops or rent new apts and illegally rent the apts out short-term.)"

Same thing - when you rent an apartment in Paris or Rome, aren't you putting everyone in the building at risk, in exactly the same manner?

And:

"Sorry - but the safety and security of local residents trumps the desire of tourists for uber cheap housing.

And if one thinks there are too many laws in NYC (these providing for safety of hotel guests with fire laws and others preventing carrying of fire arms) one is free not to visit the city."

Perhaps you should take your own advice.

Christina

I think San Francisco is havang a similar problem as rents are so expensive there, it is becoming impossible for people with even decent jobs but starting out (but not super high tech salaries), to live there. The cost of even a 1 BR is astronomical.

I used to live in a place that introduced rent control while I was renting, and it really did negatively impact the ability of people to move around and the availability of apartments (this was Santa Monica, CA). I was not a fan. The problem was that no one would move much at that point, so the availability slowed down. Then, landlords started introducing backhanded ways of funneling them money to rent a place (key fees, they signed up with realtors who would then charge huge fees to tenants to get them a place, that got funneled through to the landlord). Also, you could evict someone if you could claim a relative was going to live there or something, so lots of people got evicted for short-term relatives which then freed the place up after a while to go to market rent, etc. You had to know someone to get a place, it was really terrible compared to when I first moved there when you would see ads, go look at a few, and decide.

Yes, it was becoming more expensive then, but it wasn't as bad as now with the tourists and expensive hotels. I understand the issue that without rent control, poor people can't afford to live there, but I also wonder -- since when is it a god-given right for someone to live in one of the most expensive beach communities in the US at below-market rates? LA was a little different in that there are plenty of other, lower cost areas to live that aren't that far away. Sure, you may have to commute to work, if you worked in SM and had a very low income (although most of the people benefiting from rent control weren't poor Mexicans as far as I could tell), but that's true everywhere. I have to commute 25 miles to work daily, that's life.

I'm not a fan of rent control from an economic viewpoint, I don't think it helped Boston out, either.

nytraveler

Smetz -

But those cities don;t have laws against it. It I were a renter there I would have the same concerns. But without regulation it's not possible to stop it.

Except in coops - this is one of the reasons we live in one - so we know and approve our neighbors - and random strangers just can't wander through the building. We do not allow short-term sublets and long-term (a year or more) sublets are allowed only with full financial and criminal investigation of the proposed sub tenants and approval of the board members.

nytraveler

Sorry - As for "taking my own advice" I have no idea what that means?

Not live in NYC where I am perfectly happy with the laws?

Not visit other places where the laws are different - again doesn't apply to me - we stay in hotels since we prefer full services on vacation.

You're not making any sense.

nelsonian

Acrtually I thought I had read somewhere that it is illegal to rent apartments on a short term basis in Paris, but everyone ignores it.

kenav

"Please explain to me exactly why removing stabilization would cause landlords to build new affordable housing in Manhattan. " Agree with nytraveler here. I live in NYC and I do't see how destabilizing apts will all of a sudden encourage the landlord of said apt. to make it affordable!

As for giving "poor people" subsidies - many get that. It's the middle class that's suffering. The average person doesn't make $200k and up. And we aren't wealthy Asians or Russians or whoever, looking to invest in NYC real estate. We're looking to live in the city we've always lived in.

In NYC you can rent part of your apt. if you are living in it - physically there. But you can't make a profit by renting out your apt. (which you don't own) to someone when you are not there. If that is the agreement you signed when moving in, you should abide by it. And, anyway, it's the law! End of discussion.

Michael

Why speak of 200K incomes when "The median household income across New York City stands at $50,711, according to 2010-2012 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. That's down from $54,057 in inflation-adjusted dollars for the 2007-2009 period."?

Ackislander

One of the legal columns in the local edition of the NYT yesterday had a letter from a young man who rented his coop for a few days while he was out if town.

The board fined him $1000. No discussion, no protest, just added it to his monthly fee. Further discussion on the city rules against >30 day rentals if the owner is not present throughout. You can rent a room if the coop or condo docs allow, but you can't rent the whole apartment unless the owner is present.

nytraveler

I am not aware of ANY co-ops that allow this - and a close friend is part of a local group of co-ops that deal with common issues. I believe a few condos may. In my co-op we ended forcing the sale of one apartment whose owner sublet the apartment several times without board approval (we changed the outer locks on the building and the locks on her apartment so she couldn't do it any longer and the next "sublet" couldn't get in.)

In terms of rental apartments - almost all leases outlaw this practice and can be grounds for the landlord to evict the tenant from a rent stabilized apartment.

Elizabeth_S

I posted this in the Lounge but it's also appropriate here - Portland has passed a bylaw permitting AirBnb-type rentals under some terms (notwithstanding condo rules might be different)

http://www.ibtimes.com/airbnb-legali...cities-1646398