In NYC, it is primarily a safety/quality of live issue, and a housing issue.
1. The problem with what you are saying about weeding out unsafe listings is that pretty much any listing in a non-doorman building where there isn't someone in the apartment to oversee the guests is going to be unsafe and reduce the quality of life for the other residents, and those types of listings account for most of the illegal rentals. Essentially, you have a parade of people with keys to the building who don't live there, who are on vacation and don't really care how they effect the people around them.
2. It is taking a critical source of semi-affordable housing off the market: apartments in non-doorman, low-rise buildings. Renters can't compete with Airbnb on price, so more and more are getting snatched up to be run as hotels, increasing competition and driving prices up for everyone else.
I think the solution is almost exactly what the NY AG is pursuing: attempting to aggressively go after people renting apartments as illegal hotels so that it is no longer desirable to do operate them. Continue to allow people to "share" their homes by renting out a room or a couch, but restrict the "entire home" rentals to people who own their property and can legally do it.
1. The problem with what you are saying about weeding out unsafe listings is that pretty much any listing in a non-doorman building where there isn't someone in the apartment to oversee the guests is going to be unsafe and reduce the quality of life for the other residents, and those types of listings account for most of the illegal rentals. Essentially, you have a parade of people with keys to the building who don't live there, who are on vacation and don't really care how they effect the people around them.
2. It is taking a critical source of semi-affordable housing off the market: apartments in non-doorman, low-rise buildings. Renters can't compete with Airbnb on price, so more and more are getting snatched up to be run as hotels, increasing competition and driving prices up for everyone else.
I think the solution is almost exactly what the NY AG is pursuing: attempting to aggressively go after people renting apartments as illegal hotels so that it is no longer desirable to do operate them. Continue to allow people to "share" their homes by renting out a room or a couch, but restrict the "entire home" rentals to people who own their property and can legally do it.