[cauterized]

Which is in turn extremely damaging to communities where real estate is at a premium and even people who make a lot of money struggle to find housing they can afford. There's a reason full-time AirBnBing is illegal in a lot of these municipalities, and it's the same reason it should stay that way.

[psaintla]

There should be some limitations in place but how would you enforce them? If your local government checks Airbnb regularly to find people breaking the law then people will just use some other method to do the same thing as Airbnb.

[EwanToo]

If I was the person in charge of enforcing it, I would probably do something like:

  1 - Make it illegal for Airbnb style services to operate in that area, including making a website available, advertising the service, taking listings in that region, etc
  2 - Threaten to jail or heavily fine senior employees if law broken
  3 - Offer a legal route which involves an audit trail of bookings being supplied to the local gov
  4 - Use audit trail to deal with rule-breaking landlords

Steps 1 and 2 are essentially how the US government deals with foreign gambling websites.

[psaintla]

That's a lot to ask from a local government.

[EwanToo]

For New York state government (or equivalent) though?

[Brakenshire]

If the customer is able to find the listing, enforcement agencies certainly should be able to.

[shaftoe]

So, you have the right to tell someone what they're allowed to charge for access to their own property?

[vkou]

Unless said property literally floats in a vacuum, there are many public externalities arising from your use of your property.

[ceejayoz]

Yes. The US is set up to permit regulation on federal, state, and local levels. It's one of the main roles of government.

[jellicle]

And since it is only the U.S.'s regulations that make a particular piece of property "yours" rather than "no one's", arguing about the legitimacy of said regulations is incredibly daft. In the absence of regulations, you don't have any property at all.

[shaftoe]

The only reason anyone owns anything is because of government regulations?

That's an interesting take on the philosophy behind private property rights.