Tenant activists celebrated when Los Angeles ushered in new rules to clamp down on renting homes for short stays, saying the city needed to stop landlords who were running apartment buildings like hotels.
But more than a year after that law went into effect, many rental hosts appear to be ignoring it. Thousands of illegal rentals are still being advertised online, according to city officials and a Times analysis of listings on the popular platform Airbnb — and only a fraction have been penalized with fines.
The new law limits Angelenos to hosting short-term rentals in their “primary residence,” not in a second home or an investment property — a rule meant to ease the housing crisis. It also requires hosts to register with the city, which checks that they meet that and other requirements. Advertising an unregistered listing could be a way to try to dodge those rules.
The Times analysis found that as of early June, nearly 5,000 Airbnb listings for short-term rentals in Los Angeles lacked city registration numbers. The city, in turn, has estimated that on Airbnb, more than 6,000 listings are out of compliance — a number equal to roughly 42% of active listings on all platforms in Los Angeles.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.