New Orleans bans most short-term rentals

Well that escalated quickly. New Orleans has been having trouble getting short-term rental sites to comply with its new rules (capping bookings at 90 days per year). It’s a classic case where Airbnb cooperated (eventually), but then the illegal activity moved to the other sites (that didn’t).

Fed up with the lack of cooperating, New Orleans has cracked down hard, banning most types of short-term rentals in the city. If you rent out a room in a house you’re still allowed to, but not your entire home.

This hits the professional hosts the hardest, exactly what New Orleans should do. It’s these hosts causing the bulk of the problem around affordability and community impact. It’s just hard to target these individuals (and often, companies) without hurting normal people renting out their homes too.

That New Orleans has taken such drastic steps shows how difficult it is to enforce booking limits. It’s a band-aid solution that buys a little time, but increasingly doesn’t even do that. It’s why smart policies target availability limits instead. These don’t rely on cooperation from businesses that have no incentive to cooperate.