You won't believe how much the top Airbnb hosts in New York City are making this year

Airbnb has been under a tremendous amount of pressure from officials in New York City and, in an attempt to show that its hosts aren't violating any housing laws or hotel restrictions, it released anonymized data on all 59,242 properties that are listed in the city. The information (which was only available to reporters who made an appointment to view it at a Chelsea coworking space) revealed the types of homes or apartments that were rentable through the site and the amount of money those hosts were pulling in from their listings.

According to the New York Times, the average New York City host earns around $5,110 each year. The Huffington Post reports that 38,000 hosts make less than $10,000 each year from their Airbnb listings, but things are pretty, pretty good for some of the remaining 20,000 hosts. More than 10,000 people are pulling in between $10,001 and $50,000 a year, while the top 127 users earn something in the jaw-dropping range of $100,001 and $350,000 annually. Chris Lehane, the head of global policy and public affairs for Airbnb, said:

"Our hope is that people will understand 99 percent of people on Airbnb in New York City are using it as an economic lifeline."

Um, it seems less like a lifeline and more like a life-yacht for some of those people (Huffington Post harrumphed that the actual number of "lifeliners" was closer to 64%). The top earners are also renting out their entire homes on the platform, which is what causes some regulators to raise their collective eyebrows. Renting an entire private home or apartment for less than 30 days is illegal in the state of New York. Airbnb's report did not specify which of the whole-house rentals had been for less than 30 days — and why would it?

Last year, New York State attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman argued that nearly 75% of Airbnb's rentals in the city were, in fact, illegal. According to the Times, Schneiderman declined to comment on the company's most recent report.