Airbnb's Midtown Showdown

The presence of Airbnb put price pressures on the New York rental market to the tune of $616 million in rent increases in 2016, according to a new report from the New York City Office of the Comptroller.

The study used regression analysis to compare current Airbnb listing data with what rents would have been in the city's 55 neighborhoods without such rentals. The site's policy manager, Andrew Kalloch, says that the report, "severely misrepresents the impact of our platform on housing and is full of elementary methodological mistakes," adding that New Yorkers "deserve better," from the office. Comptroller Scott Stringer replied that the report's methodology was "sound," The New York Times reports.

Airbnb has more than 50,000 apartment listings in New York City, the company’s largest market in the United States. The comptroller’s report shed light on the clash of the so-called sharing economy with city neighborhoods struggling to preserve their stock of affordable housing and rein in skyrocketing rents, though the report also found that the online rental site had a negligible effect on most neighborhoods outside of Manhattan and Brooklyn, where listings are sparse.

Read more