It seems like people want to ban Airbnb and competing firms because reasons. Something about driving up prices or something because people will buy houses just to let them out or whatever.
To me, this just says there’s a lot of unmet demand for short term rentals so rather than banning them, why don’t we just build more of them until the market is saturated and an equilibrium is reached vs. long term rentals and owner-occupied houses?
I live in a beach community, personally, I don’t like short term rentals with no emotional investment in the community. Summer rentals are one thing, but weekenders are not the most considerate
AirbNb has a tendency to destroy the tax base of smaller communities.
It hollows them out.
I have seen this many times in the UK. Summer time there are lots of people, but in winter time the place becomes a ghost town with lots of homes sitting empty.
This is clearly not sustainable, so a balance has to be struck between local needs and short-term rentals.
I hear the country is full, we don’t need to do anything to suggest otherwise.
Wouldn’t there be even fewer people if there weren’t the Airbnbs? If there weren’t Airbnbs people wouldn’t go for the summer because they’d have no place to stay.
Maybe in getaway town that is mostly vacationers, however in a big city where there are plenty of hotels to visit but people prefer a private rental for various reasons you end up with the following:
(Maybe you are correct that there is unmet demand, but is that a good thing?)
We live in a vacation town. Short-term rentals are rampant. The city is trying to crack down and limit them but so far hasn’t done anything.
Meanwhile, the town has a housing shortage even relative to the rest of the country. The service workers are priced out of the market because people snap up all the starter homes and convert them to rentals. As a result, the oversized service industry in the town is having difficulty finding employees, and places are slowly closing or are open for limited hours. The hotels are also struggling.
I’ve advocated for building high-density housing just outside of the main tourist strips and improving our bus routes so workers can commute without needing a car. However, I have zero power to effect anything.