East Williamsburg has the most illegal Airbnb listings: report

Neighborhood hosts advertising entire apartments face $2.3M in potential fines in total

A map of the neighborhoods with the most full apartment rentals that will be affected by the new Airbnb law (credit: Value Penguin) (click to enlarge)
A map of the neighborhoods with the most full apartment rentals that will be affected by the new Airbnb law (credit: Value Penguin) (click to enlarge)

East Williamsburg is the neighborhood with the most to lose under New York’s recently passed illegal-subletting law, according to an analysis of neighborhoods with the most illegal Airbnb listings.

In New York it is illegal to rent out apartments for less than 30 days if a tenant isn’t at home, and earlier this month Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law that would fine violators from $1,000 to $7,500 for repeat offenders. Enforcement of the law is on hold after Airbnb filed a lawsuit against the state within hours of Cuomo’s signing.

East Williamsburg tops the list with 314 listings for full apartments. If each host were fined the maximum $7,500 under the law, the neighborhood as a whole would be charged $2.35 million, according to an analysis by the website Value Penguin.

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After East Williamsburg, five zip codes in downtown Manhattan, including the Lower East Side, Chelsea and the East, West and Greenwich Villages tied at around 200 listings. Three other neighborhoods that made the top 10 were Prospect Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan.

“There definitely seems to be a correlation with higher incidence of Millennials living in these neighborhoods,” Craig Cassaza, author of the report, told DNAinfo, based on Census data not included in the analysis.

Casazza also implied that the renaissance in areas like East Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy might be linked to the number of tourists coming through, partly because of Airbnb. [DNAinfo]Chava Gourarie