On the 5th of September, 2023, NYC short-term rental restrictions came into force.
 

NYC Short-Term Rental Restrictions:

• You cannot rent an entire apartment or home to visitors for less than 30 days, even if you own or live in the building.
• You must be present during your guests’ stay if it is for less than 30 days.
• You may have up to two paying guests staying in your household for fewer than 30 days, only if every guest has free and unobstructed access to every room and each exit within the apartment.
• Internal doors cannot have key locks that allow guests to leave and lock their room behind them. All occupants need to maintain a common household, which means, among other things, that every member of the family and all guests have access to all parts of the dwelling unit. Internal doors with such key locks create barriers to escaping in an emergency and may result in a temporary vacate order being issued.
• Under the NYC Administrative Code, property owners are responsible for ensuring their properties are always maintained safely and code-compliant. Property owners can and will be issued the violation for illegal short-term rentals, even if tenants conduct it.
• New York State law also prohibits advertising an apartment in a Class A multiple dwelling, generally a building with three or more permanent residential units, for rent for less than 30 days. Fines for doing so range from $1,000 to $7,500 and will be issued to the person responsible for the advertisement.

 

There were 3,250 licence applications when writing this, with 257 approved for short-term rental hosts.

 

Booking Services:

The law (Local Law 18) requires short-term rental hosts to register with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE). It prohibits booking service platforms (such as Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, etc.) from processing unregistered short-term rental transactions.

There has been a noticeable decline in the amount of properties available on these booking sites, but not yet on Google.

When this law came into effect (5th September), there were 3,329 property listings; today (19th September), there are 3,298 property listings.

 

 

Note: All of the listings visible in the screenshot are now displaying the hosting booking platform prominently. I can only assume without any official response, Google is trying to make it clear that they are not the platform hosting these profiles.

 

 

This new label and look has been rolled out globally, I like it and makes it clear they are via 3rd party booking sites.
 

• Google My Business for Vacation Rentals (Holiday Homes) – Clearing Up The Confusion

 

Removing Google Business Profile

If you have been hit with a fine for advertising your property and need it removed, your first point of call should be the 3rd Party booking site or sites your registered your property with.

Without any responce from google on how they transitioned these properties to display booking sites, I can only assume it was via API and by removing from 3rd party, your profile should be removed.

If not your first point of contact should be Google Business Support. Failing that create a thread in the Google Business Help Community, and a product expert can ask the questions from the team.

 

 
Online Ownership offers local seo services to the hospitality industry (Not NYC Now) where we help property owners increase their organic bookings rather than relying on OTAs to fill their property.