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Airbnb is a ‘sinister force’ that hides its true business, while its popularity distorts the housing market and overly influences politicians, says the Australian who is arguably, globally, the online letting agency’s Public Enemy No 1.
As the $50 billion business rides its first wave of negative publicity in its short but spectacular ride to widespread fame and immense fortune – facing curbs in San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam, London and Berlin – its executives know they can thank an Australian for much of the increased scrutiny and criticism.
Sydney-born, New York based web analyst Murray Cox, creator of independent monitoring website InsideAirbnb.com, claims Airbnb’s growing popularity is pricing first-time buyers out of homes, forcing rents up and displacing the most vulnerable home-seekers to our city fringes.
And as he sets out to counter airbnb’s “everybody wins” marketing, professional photographer and self-confessed data nerd Cox happily admits he is probably the A$50 billion company’s global public enemy number one.
“Airbnb have a very specific message that they want to get out, about people sharing their homes in areas where there are no hotels,” he says on a visit to his home town of Sydney.
How a Sydneysider took on
a $50 billion online giant
“They are less keen on the facts and figures that show whole homes – which is the majority of listings around the world – being taken out of the rental market and of local people being displaced so that profits can be made from tourism.”
The former Sydneysider’s website uses actual Airbnb listings and hosts’ online calendars to show how many beds, rooms and whole homes are available in the world’s cities.
Cox, 44, studied computer science, pure mathematics and psychology at Sydney University in the early 90s and worked in computing, including helping to devise the ATO’s e-tax system while studying photography. He moved to New York eight years ago and now works there as a documentary photographer and Chief Data Activist of InsideAirbnb.com.
This week he had meetings with Innovation and Better Regulation Minister Victor Dominello, as well as policymakers from City of Sydney telling them that while airbnb consistently claims it is helping “ordinary people to make ends meet”, it is displacing more vulnerable residents who can’t compete with holiday rents.
“I think it’s even a bit sinister. In their attempt to avoid regulation, they’re telling politicians and the media that Airbnb is mostly just people renting out a spare room to earn extra money.”
In any case, Cox disputes the idea that renting a room in your house or flat has no downside for anyone. He claims low-income renters who might once have been roommates or lodgers are being priced out of certain areas.
Cox started data-mining the Airbnb online information when he became concerned about its effect on the predominantly black area of Brooklyn (New York) where he lives. There he discovered that, far from ordinary residents making more money, the hosts were mostly white and the poorer blacks were being driven out.
Australia is particularly vulnerable too, says Cox, because we have allowed housing to be seen as a form of investment rather than primarily putting roofs over people’s heads.
His fears may be justified. Last year Airbnb Australia and New Zealand country manager Sam McDonagh said Australia was “the most penetrated market in the world,” and that they hoped to double Sydney’s 262,000 total guests, itself a 106 per cent increase on the previous year.
With such exponential growth, Cox claims first-time home owners and renters are being priced out of some areas because investors are buying properties with the clear intention of immediately listing them on Airbnb where they will maximise their profits.
“If a politician is using residential housing to maximise their income, they are breaking a social contact,” he says, adding that this is exacerbated when they come to vote on allowing holiday letting which may be to their direct benefit.
“There’s a question of ethics at stake, and it might even be regarded as corruption as well as a conflict of interest.
“If a regular person does it, it could be seen as not supporting their neighbours or the community, but for a politician, it’s much more problematic, it’s unethical. Politicians should be working for our interests, not theirs.”
HOW DOES InsideAirbnb WORK?
InsideAirbnb.com’s data analysis reveals where listings are concentrated, what percentage is for whole homes and claims to show how many properties can no longer be used for residential rents because of Airbnb lets.
For instance, of the 23,625 holiday lets available in Sydney, 14,625 (61.9%) are for whole homes and 8,615 (37.1%) are for rooms in an occupied house or flat. Less than 400 are for beds in a shared room. The map shows the vast majority are bunched together in the eastern and harbourside suburbs, inner west, and northern beaches.
Cox then analyses the listings and only takes those that have received at least one review, so that he knows this was a genuine listing and not just someone who was trying Airbnb on for size. From this he reckons, for instance, that 14% are let in patterns that mean they couldn’t be residential and 30% are multiple listings by single hosts.
The interactive maps on his website trigger pop-ups of actual listings. And generally he errs on the side of caution to ensure his figures aren’t exaggerated.
As a result, InsideAirbnb.com has become the go-to resource for local and national governments – as well as journalists and commentators – trying to establish the realities of the so-called “sharing economy”.