A friend group of mine recently visited the city for a week, there were six of them. They managed to find a brownstone on Airbnb which, because it's the whole building, is within compliance of rentals under 30 days.

There's only so many of those, though. They looked at hotels, of course no rooms had space for the whole group, no kitchen, etc. Add on resort fees (sorry, 'urban destination' fees), and rooms are easily over $350 a night.

I don't know what the solution is, and sadly don't have one to offer. But saying pricey hotels or bust is a disappointing future imo.