Holiday let fireworks – parties, crime and a backlash
If you’ve had illicit Airbnb or other short-term holiday lets (STHL) in your block and hadn’t realised it, you will know all about it by now. Christmas and New Year…
Airbnb in strata
It’s not just Airbnb – it’s all short-term holiday letting (STL) in apartment blocks. But that California-based holiday letting internet site has become the generic term for this activity.
Now that there’s proof that it afffects residential rents – they go down when STLs go away – it will be interesting to see how state governments react when out borders are open. Expect lighter-touch, if any, restrictions to encourage tourism.
Podcast: The Wrap … all the way from Cambodia
Wrestling with laptops and hotel wi-fi, we finally bring you the second-last Flat Chat wrap podcast of the year. Was it worth the effort? Only you can be the judge…
Top Vic cop warns of Airbnb-enabled crime wave
In what has to have been one of the worst weeks for Airbnb since short-term online holiday letting landed on these shores, we’ve had two prime examples of exactly why…
Airbnb launches campaign against pro-resident MPs
Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Having had an easy ride from Australia’s mostly pliant politicians, Airbnb has warned that they will now use their considerable online clout to campaign…
Who are your strata saints and sinners for 2018?
It’s that time of year when Santa has to decide who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. And here in Flat Chat Central we were thinking, why should he have…
Labor to introduce Airbnb register, halving listings
The NSW Labor party is likely to introduce compulsory registrations of Airbnb-style short-term holiday lets (STHL), if it wins power at next year’s state election. And that could see STHL numbers…
The Wrap podcast: Parking, popular pet names, and Airbnb
We’re back in Australia this week, with a story about a conflict that couldn’t be more Aussie. Sue Williams takes us through her yarn about people who bought parking spots…
Podcast 5 – parking, pet names & Airbnb hosting
A decades-long parking battle ends up in the Appeals Court, trendy pet names, how to be a better Airbnb host, garage doors and more … all in our Flat Chat…
How to be a better Airbnb host … no … really!
Regular readers of this column (thank you both) will know that I am not the biggest fan of Airbnb, nor they of me. Let’s just put that down to my…
Resident owners’ report slams holiday letting laws
The peak body representing apartment owners in NSW has blasted the incoming short-term holiday letting laws as “excessively generous” to holiday letting hosts and a threat to the very nature…
Will cook and clean … for a room in your home
Take people who don’t have enough time on their hands to do basic domestic duties … but own one of seven million spare rooms believed to be lurking in Australian…
Capital offences: Gentrification opens door to … guess who
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON DC There’s an interesting process underway in the US capital and it’s something with which we are familiar with here in Australia. No, I don’t mean…