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Airbnb Shares Blame for Rising Rents, Says Comptroller
Apartment renters citywide paid $616 million in additional rent in 2016 due to the exponential growth of Airbnb listings, according to a report issued by city comptroller Scott Stringer. The report attributes 9.2% of the citywide rental rate increases between 2009 and 2016 to Airbnb, with neighborhoods in Midtown and Lower Manhattan seeing especially steep increases.
“From Bushwick to Chinatown and in so many neighborhoods in-between, affordable apartments that should be available to rent never hit the market, because they are making a profit for Airbnb,” said Stringer. “Airbnb has grown exponentially at the expense of New Yorkers, who face rising rents and the risk of being pushed out of communities they helped build.”
Airbnb disputed the report’s findings. “The majority of our hosts are sharing the home in which they live, not removing permanent housing from the market,” the home-sharing website wrote in a rebuttal.
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