New York City is enforcing a 'de facto ban' on Airbnb. Will travelers be better off without it?

• New York City implemented new short-term rental regulations, resulting in a "de facto ban" on Airbnb.
• Listings have already disappeared from the platform, leaving an arid short-term-rental landscape.

Earlier this fall, a group of friends and I set out on a girls' trip to Pennsylvania. It was time to escape New York City, so we booked an Airbnb in the Poconos.

The home was great: clean, big enough for five people, and somewhat affordable when split five ways — all you can ask of a short-term rental, really. We spent the weekend giggling over wine and gushing over books. Ultimately, we encountered what many Airbnb users have experienced at least once: a long list of checkout chores.

On the list were the kinds of things that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has specifically spoken out against, like stripping the beds, and yet, here we were doing them.

It left our group divided. Half of us didn't mind the checkout chores. The other half, myself included, found it annoying. Not enough to ruin the vacation, but annoying nonetheless.

Meanwhile, back home in New York City, the short-term rental landscape was on the tail end of an overhaul. On September 5, the city enacted new regulations that resulted in what Airbnb has called a "de facto ban" on the platform. The new rules ban entire-home rentals, cap reservations at two guests, and require the host to be in the home with renters.

Within days, thousands of listings disappeared from the platform. As Insider previously reported, there were just 4,600 New York City Airbnb listings on the platform, down from 20,000 active listings in June.

Airbnb has since voiced its stance on the new regulations.

"In just the first two months since the rules have gone into effect, the negative consequences are clear — visitors to New York City now have fewer accommodation options in fewer neighborhoods, hotels have increased their nightly rates, and, predictably, activity has gone underground with a myriad of unregistered listings popping up on unregulated third-party websites," an Airbnb spokesperson said in an email to Insider Tuesday.

"As we enter the holiday season, these trends are expected to continue, making New York City less affordable for families visiting for the holidays," the statement continued.

But after years of annoying fines and rules, I admittedly wasn't entirely sympathetic to Airbnb's plight.

Maybe, I thought, we'd be better off without it.

Airbnb isn't fun anymore and new rules only make it worse

Frankly, I'd grown somewhat tired of Airbnb. The fees, hosts' rules — and now, regulations that put a cap on guests and require an on-site host — dampened the platform's allure.

It's not an uncommon sentiment. I was one of many consumers caught in a wave of discontentment that started when travelers began pointing out exorbitant fees that only appeared when finalizing a booking.

The company pretty quickly addressed the issue, rolling out a new tool in December 2022 that shows the total price upfront. The company told Insider that now, 38% of listings don't charge cleaning fees at all, a huge improvement.

At the same time last year, Chesky addressed "unreasonable checkout tasks," and the platform gave hosts guidance on what is and isn't fair to expect from customers. Still, as I experienced in the Poconos, hosts have a say in the tasks they ask of guests — and the things they ask guests not to do. Countless homes have been panned for having too many rules.

At this point, hotels' no-fuss nature begins to look more enticing than ever, in my opinion.

Plus, New York City's new requirement that a host is on-site will likely deter potential Airbnb customers, according to Makarand Mody, an associate professor of hospitality marketing at Boston University.

"Nobody wants a host in there," Mody told Insider. "I think over time, as more entire homes got listed on the platform, I think the consumer looks for a complete unit to themselves. Very few are looking for sharing, and I think having a host present is almost uncomfortable now, even though that's how Airbnb started."

Some of the NYC listings lack the 'wow factor' often associated with Airbnb

Beyond new city regulations that alter the user experience, travelers coming to New York City also won't find the wow-factor homes that have come to epitomize the platform. A quick search shows that some New York City listings are advertised as "apartments" but are actually standard hotel rooms.

There's not a single "OMG!" home — the designation Airbnb gives to hundreds of its "quirkiest, most mind-bending vacation rentals" — in the city. Other major metro areas, including Seattle, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, at least have a few.

Airbnb told Insider that many of the platform's since-deleted listings were in the city's outer boroughs and areas with a smaller hotel presence. Once those disappear, there will be fewer ways to live like a local outside Manhattan.

"Obviously in the countryside there's no hotels, right?" said Matt Kepnes, the founder of travel website Nomadic Matt. "I think the Airbnb use case is still phenomenal in rural areas where you don't get a lot of the hotels."

So unless you're in an area with no hotels — like, outside New York City altogether — then what's the point?

In 2021, Kepnes wrote a story declaring it was "time to break up with Airbnb." He's criticized the platform's customer service and told Insider he takes issue with short-term rentals scooping up housing stock from locals. Still, he's not on board with New York City's sweeping regulations.

Kepnes added that the new directives wouldn't deter New York City tourists but would "raise prices for consumers."

Travelers can't expect a budget trip to New York City

As Insider previously reported, by mid-September, the platform experienced a 77% decrease in New York City-based listings since June, according to analytics site AirDNA.

"The inventory does look lighter," Mody said, adding that when looking at a map of listings on the site, fewer pop up than used to. The platform's map feature shows "over 1,000 places in New York." It's a marked difference from earlier this year when there were more than 20,000 active listings.

"The average consumer will only see this when they look at the map, and they find not as many Airbnb options," Mody said. "And then they're going to start thinking, 'I may be better off looking for a hotel.'"

According to recent data from Trivago, a platform that compares hotel prices, shared with Insider, the average daily rate for a standard double room in a New York City hotel rose to $502, a 1.92% increase from September to October.

However, according to Isaac Collazo, the VP of analytics at STR, a data analysis firm focused on the hospitality industry, it's too early to say if the price jump is due to new regulations.

Instead, Collazo points to inflation, as well as to the market normalizing after the pandemic.

"You've got to remember that everything's gone up in price," Collazo said. "So when you adjust for inflation, then you go, 'oh, it's not what it seems, per se.'"

His advice for tourists heading to the city anytime soon?

"Expect New York City prices," Collazo said. "New York has always been one of the more expensive markets in the country, so it's no different today than it was in 2019. And if you're going to go at Christmas time, which is one of the peak times in New York City, yes, it's going to be expensive."