How to safely find an holiday apartment for renting in NYC?

How to safely find an holiday apartment for renting in NYC? - Focused young man pointing at map while searching for route with multiracial friends in Grand Central Terminal during trip in New York

We get horror stories about apartment renting in the US in the papers here in Australia periodically. However we're potentially looking to stay in NYC over New Year's with a few friends, so apartment renting also seems the most practical accommodation.

Is there a particularly reputable site that does verification of its holiday rentals? Conversely are there some that should be avoided? I notice TripAdvisor has some holiday rentals listed - where do they fall?



Best Answer

One thing to be careful about is that many AirBNB style rentals are actually illegal in New York City. Specifically, if the building has three or more units (almost all buildings), then the entire apartment cannot be rented out for a short term stay. (Though, if the host is still around and you're just renting a bedroom, that's perfectly legal.) So, unless you're renting for a month or more as a sublet (and even then, there are other legal issues possibly), be very careful of who you deal with for an apartment rental in NYC. While services like AirBNB are still flush with listings, many of them are only up because of AirBNB's lax policy in taking them down, and I've heard at least a few horror stories of landlords catching wind of such an arrangement and ruining somebodies vacation.




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How do I find a safe apartment in NYC?

The best apps and websites for finding an apartment in New York City
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    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: William Fortunato, Laura James, Mikhail Nilov, Any Lane