The Local Housing Market in New Orleans is in peril due to illegal short-term rental services. Vacant houses in the area are also on the rise.
In a report in WWLTV 4, Community Activist Ken Carron said that he's "been getting very frustrated with what's going on in our neighborhood and what's been going on in the city. We've been looking at things saying, where's the fairness here?"
Caron also came up an idea of posting "WTF" signs in the neighborhood. The sign question the local government of New Orleans "Where's The Fairness?" It depicts developer and business interests outweighing the welfare of the city's neighborhoods.
A data collected in since June were posted on a website run by a group of volunteers. The data shows that that the average nightly rate for a listing in New Orleans at $207. Rentals of entire homes or apartments averaged $251 per night. In some cases, property owners are even asking for more than $2,000 per night.
Jeffrey Goodman, a local urban planner gave his insights and feedbacks to the authors of the website. "The people who are basically running hotels, they're really putting a lot of pressure on neighborhoods, on housing and their neighbors,"
"Because the companies themselves, which are not based here, do not give out their information, do not talk about what's happening on their websites, it's really, really difficult to go to do enforcement." Goodman added.
Caron also commented that the rise of illegal short term rental is a proof that the city of New Orleans is not enforcing the law.
Most of the residence of New Orleans are renters. In an article in Uptown Messenger, Kate Scott, assistant director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center have enumerated problems regarding the poor rental conditions and law in New Orleans.
The Atlantic reported that there are still many vacant properties in New Orleans amidst the housing crisis.
