Why Airbnb is nothing like Uber
As Airbnb pumps bucks by the bucketful into the local media to try to convince our MPs to remove the legal right of apartment owners to keep holiday lets out…
airbnb
Winners and losers – the five main options for Airbnb laws
As D-Day approaches for holiday let legislation to be tabled in the NSW parliament, Jimmy Thomson looks at the five main options currently under discussion – and examines the likely…
Selling sharing: Airbnb facts, figures and flim-flam
Airbnb and the battle for your block: Last week Jimmy Thomson looked at how some politicians have been seduced by the myth that online short-stay letting agencies bring nothing but good…
Airbnb: Free Money and Castles in the Air
Airbnb and the battle for your block: Part 2 Last week Jimmy Thomson looked at the growth of Airbnb and the opportunity and potential threats it presents to apartment residents.…
Fight for the right to ban holiday lets taken to the top
“How often in any politician’s career does he or she get to effect tangible and significant social change?” That was what Planning Minister Anthony Roberts asked me back in 2013…
Airbnb and the battle for your blocks
In an exclusive five-part series Jimmy Thomson examines spectacular growth of short-stay letting in our cities’ most popular areas and the affect that has on rents, house prices and, especially,…
Airbnb feelgood factor crimped by $415,000 fines
Just hours after Airbnb polished their sharing and caring image with a pro-refugee ad during yesterday’s Superbowl TV broadcast in America last week, a city council has punched a $415,000…
Guerrilla warfare warning over holiday lets in apartments
Bogus by-laws, sneaky shut-outs and strangulation with red tape are all likely to be employed to keep holiday lets out of apartment blocks that don’t want them, say Sydney’s building…
MP warns airbnb backlash could lead to bans
Exclusive by Jimmy Thomson A backlash against commercial holiday lets being forced on strata buildings could see home shares and holiday swaps banned completely from high-rises in NSW, warns a…
MPs reject pro-airbnb laws
The tide appears to be turning on the apparently frantic rush to make unrestricted apartment holiday letting the norm in Australia. The upper house in the Victorian parliament has rejected…
Sydney MP breaks ranks over airbnb
Sydney MP Alex Greenwich has slammed proposals that Airbnb-style short-stay lets of entire apartments should be allowed in apartment blocks, even when the vast majority of owners don’t want them.…
Roundup: Logic takes a holiday in NSW as the world wakes up to “sharing” myth
I was hoping to take a holiday from typing the words ‘short-stay’ or Airbnb but I haven’t lasted 24 hours – it’s an issue that just won’t go away. While our state…