NYC shuttered 80% of its Airbnbs, $ABNB, in an attempt to make housing more affordable. All that's done so far is make hotels more expensive

Last September, New York City began enforcing its strict new regulations on short-term rentals. Since then, the number of legal short-term rentals listed on Airbnb and other platforms has plummeted.

Less than a year into the city's policy, known as Local Law 18, it's not clear whether the near-ban is achieving one of its central goals: relieving pressure on the city's severe housing shortage. But as summer tourism heats up, the dearth of rentals and rising hotel-room prices mean visitors to the city are in for an even pricier trip than they probably bargained for.

Under LL18, someone can rent out their home for less than 30 days only if their unit is in an approved building, they rent to a maximum of two guests at a time, and they stay in the home with their guests, among other restrictions. Potential hosts have to apply for approval from the Office of Special Enforcement under the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice.

The city opened its application portal in March last year, and as of June 24, it had received 6,395 total applications for short-term rentals, according to OSE. The city has approved 2,276 of these, denied 1,746, and asked 2,269 applicants to submit additional information, the office said.

That small number of approvals has led to a dramatic decline in short-term listings since last year, according to AirDNA, a collector of industry data. From August to September of last year, when the city began enforcing LL18, Airbnb listings for stays of less than 30 days plummeted from 22,246 to 8,039. They fell again to a low of 2,646 in October but have slowly climbed since then to nearly 4,000 in May, about 82% below the level last August.

At the same time, the number of Airbnb listings for stays longer than 30 days rose rapidly. Many of these new medium-term rentals were simply converted from short-term, AirDNA's chief economist, Jamie Lane, told Business Insider.

"When we actually looked at the total number of listings on Airbnb, from October, once the dust had settled, to pre-law going into effect, it was only about a 14% decline," Lane said.

Lane said the vast majority of New York City's short-term rental inventory was listed on Airbnb, while a small portion of it was on Vrbo and Booking.com.

The city hasn't begun fining hosts for violating LL18. It's working with Airbnb and other short-term rental companies to ensure they're in compliance before it begins cracking down.

"That's resulted in a massive reduction in illegal listings across the major platforms," Christian Klossner, the executive director of OSE, told BI. "This law was not about new fines for people. This law was about preventing it at the source, and that's what we've done."

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The city won't say how many short-term rentals it's found that violate LL18, but it says it'll publish that number in its annual report in September. However, Klossner said the city was continuing to conduct inspections based on complaints and issue fines for violations of long-standing rental regulations.

The city has long barred homeowners from renting out entire units for less than 30 days, but it didn't have the power to enforce these regulations until LL18 was passed.