It's interesting to see that Airbnb is where the HN mindset goes; it reflects a certain degree of privilege that an entrepreneurial opportunity is the first use case surfaced.

Cramming extra family/friends into an apartment who aren't officially on the lease (e.g. the adult son who's lost a job or is on parole, or the parents who can't afford assisted living and are helping raise the grandkids) is actually far more common among low-income, rent-stabilized, and minority tenants. Stopping short-term Airbnb leases isn't particularly controversial; it's going after the medium/long-term unauthorized tenants that really has a disproportionate impact on the underprivileged.

I wouldn’t have a problem with unauthorized family members staying in an apartment. At least they are known by the tenants.

I would have a problem with unknown, unvetted, random AirBnb users coming in an out where the host doesn’t really know anything about the person and won’t be there.

Rent-stabilized tenants are receiving implict or explict taxpayer subsidies. Why is it unreasonable for restrictions to be placed on their use of the property, when the government places restrictions on the landlord's use of the property (through rent-stabilization laws)?

What makes you so sure that it's not aiming to catch people who get a rent-stabilised apartment and then long-term sublet it at market rate?

I'm not "so sure", though I think gaming the system with a long term sublet would be pretty unlikely because how likely are you to find a legit tenant who would go through you as the landlord instead of the actual landlord for a luxury rental. It's more complicated than actually living in the unit and then staying with a partner or friend if you can rent it out a few days/week when you can command a good rate.

> I'm not "so sure", though I think gaming the system with a long term sublet would be pretty unlikely because how likely are you to find a legit tenant who would go through you as the landlord instead of the actual landlord for a luxury rental. It's more complicated than actually living in the unit and then staying with a partner or friend if you can rent it out a few days/week when you can command a good rate.

But it's arbitrage. The market rate is $4000 but the current tenant is paying $1000 and subletting for $3500. The inconvenience is worth $500/month, and you can't just go directly to the landlord to cut a better deal because the apartment is already "occupied" by the tenant paying $1000 who the landlord can't remove.

Criminal histories, eviction records, poor credit....lots of reasons to sublet instead of going to the landlord.

ok - i mean it doesn't have to be one or the other. If I were subleasing a place I wouldn't want a tenant who had terrible credit either though. But could be both. I'm just hypothesizing like everyone else.

If you’re subletting the apartment under the table, it is a lot easier to kick them out if they don’t pay the rent. It’s not like they can go to court for an unlawful eviction. Even in my relatively landlord friendly state, it can take two or three months to get rid of a tenant.

In New York, a subtenant in a rent-stabilized apartment can sue the prime tenant to recover overcharged rent. They can also report the prime tenant to the landlord, who will probably evict them. The subtenant can even take over the lease in some cases.

Take from someone whose been on the landlord side. It’s not worth the trouble of going through a lawsuit and trying to collect damages. The lawsuit is the easy part. Collecting is the hard part.

It sounds like you're talking about collecting from delinquent tenants. They can be hard to track down and rarely have the money.

I'm talking about a subtenant retaliating against a prime tenant who kicked them out. Getting the prime tenant evicted is easy. On average, they're easier to find and collect from. Suing to take over the lease is hard, but collecting from the landlord is easy.

If you don't own the property and don't even live there then what's the problem? You can make them pay upfront.

haha i mean if we're talking about a situation where someone has bad credit, or a criminal history or whatever how many people with that background will have the funds to pay upfront (or want to)?

Having subleased to a legitimate person before, it's already annoying/stressful enough to be a sublandlord since you are taking on a lot of credit risk as is. If I'm in a position where I'm going to shadily rent out my below market apartment I'm not going to rent it out to someone that a normal landlord otherwise wouldn't pick.

Plenty of people have actual friends and relatives with those backgrounds.

Is it any more messed up than someone having the fortune of inheriting a luxury apartment and doing the exact same thing?

It's a lottery either way. Either there's a problem with lotteries in general or a problem with what kind of person is allowed to win them.

Wouldn’t this be “unauthorized tenants?”

Well, the person I replied to for some reason specifically called out medium/long-term guests, like partners or friends not officially on the lease.