I’ve used airbnb before, to rent someone’s flat when I was between units, whilst they were in Hawaii for a few weeks. In other words, I used it in the “classic” way, for peer-to-peer sharing of a spare space in a home primarily used as someone’s primary residence, whilst they were temporarily away.
I will not do so again, because since then I’ve learned more about the company’s evasive business practices that support the contravention of zoning laws in many communities, including many around Sydney. I want to send an economic message to airbnb that I do not support the company’s relying on whole-unit, most-of-year-available rentals, increasingly by investors holding multiple units who’ve realised they can better pay off their overpriced mortgages by renting by the night than leasing by the year, for a large percentage of their profits.
What’s more, I am getting this message out there. Any time someone’s asking about airbnb online or in the office, I shake my head derisively and tell them about the impact the company’s business practices have had on residential housing in popular cities around the world, that over and over again statistics show that airbnb proliferation removes dwellings from the rental pool for residents and raises rents. I explain, “If you’re unable to afford a hotel, and don’t want to stay in a hostel, I guess it’s an option, but it’s not a socially responsible choice, and I think it’s only worth chosing as a last resort.” In short, I do as much as I can to present it as the low-rent, budget option you choose only if you don’t feel you have an alternative, just as less well off people buy more chips than fresh veg — because that’s what I believe it is.
Airbnb gets a lot of mileage out of coolness and the goodness of peer-to-peer sharing and all of that. It’s a load of BS hype. The way to counter them is, I think, to get the message out that they’re just another profit seeking business increasingly populated by rent seekers who’ve overpaid for their investment properties and have to rent them out by the night to a tourist rather than by the year to a resident. This has the effect of reducing rental stock and raising rental prices for residents who want to live within 20km of their jobs. And to make it worse, airbnb is facilitating this reduction in rental supply whilst publicly claiming that they’re primarily a way for mum and dad to make a quid out of junior’s old bedroom whilst he’s away for the summer, which is NOT where most of their money comes from.
In Sydney, per InsideAirbnb (thank you Murray Cox) nearly 1 out of every 3 people offering properties on airbnb offers MULTIPLE properties. Some of this might be multiple spare rooms being rented out by a homeowner in their house, but most of these are multiple separate properties being rented out as whole-unit or whole-home rentals, which make up the bulk of Sydney rentals. And in addition to these multi-unit tycoons, plenty of the other 70% are investors with just one property to rent out full time.
This isn’t a case of mum and dad temporarily sharing space in their home to help make mortgage payments.
It’s a case of Jack making a greater return from his residential investment property than a renter could afford to pay for it as a residential rental. The same person is probably also benefiting from negative gearing, and depending on the service he or she is listing on, may or may not even be reporting the full amount of the income.
No thank you. Airbnb and services like it, get OUT of my community. You’re wrecking it both for renters who want affordable housing near their jobs rather than only 90 minutes away in areas tourists have no use for, and for strata owner-occupiers who want stable community, not a come-and-go hostel, in their building.