Letters

We are living in a year-round rental nightmare on the East End.

I write this mindful of the many East End residents who are in the exasperating “game of musical chairs” looking for a place to live right now, as winter rentals end to make way for lucrative seasonal and short-term rentals. Inventory for homes and apartments under $3,000 per month is virtually nonexistent. As a real estate agent, I get calls from locals begging for a rental almost daily. Those with children are in a panic.

Some end up crowding into friend or family houses, couch surfing, or worse — living in unpermitted basements, attics or garages. Some have become homeless, living in cars, vans, RVs, sleeping in parks, on beaches, or in driveways. Many find no place to go and have just given up and left the area.

It’s just crazy. We’re talking about architects, teachers, town employees, restaurant workers and doctors — people we rely on to keep our communities running.

An unofficial survey on Airbnb shows approximately 3,000 listings on the South Fork, with high concentrations in Montauk, Springs, Sag Harbor, Southampton and Hampton Bays. Water Mill is home to “the priciest Airbnb in the country, a sprawling 12,000-square-foot gated estate with nine bedrooms and eight and a half bathrooms that can accommodate more than 16 guests.” Priced at $24,000 to $70,000 per night! Seems like a swank hotel is operating in a residential district.

The saturation of unregulated short-term rentals on Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms has artificially inflated both the sale and rental markets, eliminating the year-round rentals local residents and workers have depended on for generations, and pricing local people out of buying a home.

We must tighten our short-term rental codes, as many towns and villages around the United States and the world are doing today. We need well-staffed rental code enforcement offices to process rental applications and enforce existing laws.

We can consider instituting a rental tax on rental income over a certain amount. Let’s not make it difficult for local property owners who rent a spare bedroom in their home on weekends or their home during the weeks they travel, but let’s tax and regulate predatory investors who purchase homes with the intent to operate boutique hotels in residential neighborhoods. Proceeds could fund the rental code enforcement offices.

These steps should reduce the illegal short-term rental supply, drive rental price equilibrium, and improve the quality of life for local residents, without hurting the seasonal rental market.

Along with tightening of rental codes, we need to create more year-round rental homes throughout our towns and villages. We must take action now.

Michael Daly

East End YIMBY

Sag Harbor