Here's Why NYC's Hotel Rooms Are So Expensive Right Now

The average daily rate for a hotel stay in New York City has reached a record high.Photo by(Yesterdays-Paper/DeviantArt)

The average hotel room rate in the city now exceeds $300 a night

New York City — "The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding." John Updike's famed remark, though funny, also hints at why the cost of living is so darn high in NYC.

First, MTA increased the base fare for subway rides.

Now, the average hotel room rate in the city is at a record high — $301 a night. What's going on here?

Ahh, but contrary to what most people think, the sky-high hotel rates don't reflect the cost of living in the city of skyscrapers.

Because "population" and "popular" come from the same root word, most people's initial response to such news is it's merely a case of "you've gotta pay the cost to be the boss."

Not exactly.

For once, the cost of living in the nation's biggest city has little to do with rising prices. Instead, several unforeseen factors have contributed to the NYC's shortage of rooms:

1. The migrant crisis
2. Travel resurgence
3. Economic inflation

With so many hotels now being converted into migrant shelters, the supply of available rooms dwindles by the day. As the first law of economics states: high demand when mixed with low supply is always a recipe for overpriced goods.

In short, with one of every five hotels now serving as a shelter, tourists can expect the shortage to linger.

Of course, for those in need of hotels, who find NYC's prices a tad too high, they can always take Eddie Murphy's advice: "Jersey's just right across the river. It's a lot cheaper... and a lot quieter, too."