sharing economy

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How Williamsburg Airbnb Hosts Are Dealing With the New Law Against Home Sharing

17-airbnb-logo.w245.h368.2x1As you surely know by now if you rent out your apartment through Airbnb—whether you’re a working stiff making a few extra bucks each month to cover your rent or an enterprising bartender making $45,000 a year pimping out your friends’ pads—the jig is just about up. A new state law threatens to push many users out of the short-term rental business, so Bedford + Bowery asked several Airbnb hosts from the home sharing hub of Williamsburg how they plan to deal with the new regulation. More →

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Common Is Bringing Its Grown-Up Dorms to Williamsburg

(Photo by Sophie Wilkinson)

Wiliamsburg Common apartment (Photo by Sophie Wilkinson)

During a recent trip backpacking through Thailand, Kamilah Gray was taken with the experience of meeting new friends at hostels. So, once the 25-year-old got back in New York she Googled “adult dorm” on a whim and found Common.

It’s not exactly a dorm, she says, but it’s definitely a change in lifestyle. Three weeks ago, she moved into one of the start-up’s Crown Heights locations, where she pays $1,540 a month for a small bedroom that comes with a host of perks: a mattress, linens, free laundry and housekeeping, and, above all, a sense of belonging with her 18 new housemates– something that had been hard to achieve during her three years as a New Yorker.

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