How New Yorkers Describe Their Homes

A bicyclist passes apartments on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. Airbnb listings show that Brooklynites describe their residences as private and sunny.

New York City is known for its cramped living spaces, but New Yorkers who advertise rentals on Airbnb are doing as much as they can to shift attention from that fact.

An analysis of nearly 50,000 Airbnb listings across the five boroughs shows that the words “cozy,” “private” and “spacious” are frequently used to describe rooms and apartments.

See how short-term rentals in your borough are depicted to attract visitors.

Each borough returned a different set of adjectives, but there was quite a bit overlap.

Sure, “brownstone” makes sense for Brooklyn, but what about “convenient” to describe a place in Staten Island? We’re not as convinced.