City Cracks Down On Manhattan Airbnb Operation In 35 Buildings

NEW YORK, NY — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration filed a lawsuit Monday against a Manhattan real estate firm for violating the city's short-term rental laws by marketing hundreds of apartments in dozens of buildings on sites such as Airbnb.

The firm Metropolitan Property Group used 18 different corporate entities to list 130 apartments in 35 Manhattan buildings for illegal short-term rentals — primarily on the site Airbnb — city officials announced Monday. The Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement filed a lawsuit against the firm Monday.

"Illegal hotels take precious housing away from New Yorkers and destabilize our communities. My administration is cracking down on corporate operators to ensure residents and visitors are safe and are treated fairly," de Blasio said Monday.

City officials described Metropolitan Property Group's operation as "highly developed" and "commercial," in an attempt to dispel the notion that most Airbnb hosts are small-time property owners. The firm listed every apartment in an entire East Harlem building for short-term rentals, city officials claimed.

Five employees at the real estate firm created more than 100 fake accounts on Airbnb to set up 250 rental listings on the site at a time. Between 2015 and 2018 the firm made an estimated $20.7 million from the operation, city officials claim.

Metropolitan Property Group's operation resulted in 13,691 short-term rental transactions involving more than 75,000 guests, city officials said. An executive at the real estate firm told the Times:"I have no comment because it’s not true."

Airbnb attempted to frame the real estate firm's actions as an outlier, with a spokesman telling the Times that the crackdown demonstrates an "ongoing need for a comprehensive, statewide bill that would provide for strict recourse against the few bad actors while protecting the rights of thousands of regular New Yorkers who are responsibly sharing their home."

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