Illegal short-term Super Bowl rentals seek big prices — with no apparent enforcement by city

Posted by Robert Morris at 1:17 pm business, city government

Jan 092013

A home in New Orleans can fetch $1,000 or more per night during the Super Bowl, based on online ads that frequently include Uptown properties. It is illegal in New Orleans to rent out a home for less than 30 days without a permit, but Charles Maldonado of The Gambit found that “the city has issued zero administrative subpoenas in the past six months” despite new ads for rentals being listed daily.

For more, see a followup report by Tania Dall of our partners at WWL-TV:

TimGNO

Everyone I’ve discussed this with, including the immediate neighbors to (even the occupants of) listed properties say, “Who cares? We’ve experienced no problems. People should be allowed to do what they want with their own apartments.” What’s unclear in one instance, a Calhoun double owned by Jim Huger, is whether the landlord knows about the de facto sublease being sought through the AirBnB website. Again, though, does it matter?? How does the city “lose” with rentals of this nature?
- Drew Ward
  
  The people lose!
  
  I have a neighbour who constantly rents out her house, often two to three times in a given week for days at a time. The problem is that her renters may be 5-15 people who show up with 2-5 cars at a time and take up all the parking on our street.
  
  These are residential neighbourhoods and these people are renting these properties as if it were the middle of Bourbon and partying outside with music blaring till 3 in the morning.
  
  It’s not their neighbourhood so they don’t care.
rmccormack

It would be nice to know the City’s rationale for this regulation and whether it could pass constitutional muster. While it would be nice to think it has something to do with public safety, my cynical side tells me “it’s all about the Benjamins.”
- http://twitter.com/Owen_Courreges Owen Courrèges
  
  rmcormack,
  
  It’s a permitting requirement, but it dovetails with zoning restrictions and pretty clearly and falls under the city’s police power. I don’t strictly agree with it, although I understand that short term rentals often tend to cause greater problems for neighbors. Still, I’ve always the restrictions are largely designed to protect hotels and bed and breakfasts from competition.