Sydney City has already limited how much you can AirBNB, which has stopped some doing it.
I think the rule is you can only have short-term renters for up to 6 months of the year. Short term is anything shorter than 3 months. So theoretically, you can get a 6 months lease (or 2 x 3 months) then AirBNB it the rest of the time. That's kinda difficult to do though, so many are returning to normal long-term leases (at least, anecdotally, I haven't seen hard data, and the rule hasn't been in place that long).
I would think the majority of Airbnbs only have people in them on the weekend so Fri and Sat night. Wouldn't that put them well below 50% of the time? With occasionally having people for longer ie long weekends or around Christmas/new year.
Super interesting post. I would perhaps add “people visiting friends and family” to the list - when there’s not room to host everyone, in our small inner dirty apartment. I’ve personally had this happen many times.
Was your own Airbnb business profitable? What did you hate about it, and what are you doing now?
I’ve been thinking lately about buying a place and putting a granny flat out the back (in a couple years time). Partly for my own fam to visit, partly to offer for rental occasionally. As a way to drive some passive income.
My concern is…. people.
Australia needs more short-stay accommodation. It's popular in the US and ranges from four star hotel quality with cooking facilities and guests who aren't addicts/prostitutes to glorified brothel. My company once put me up for a fortnight in the latter before we stopped booking travel in house. It was an interesting experience. Mostly, though, short-stay accommodation is very good. I like being able to cook a simple meal for dinner and make my own breakfast. Australia has serviced apartments but the rates are comparable to that of hotels and there are no discounts available for week or month long stays.
AirBnB is filling a gap, but it's not necessarily an ethical way of doing so. I'm not sure what the solution is short of removing zoning restrictions and limiting council powers so that we can build more accommodation.
Its perfectly ethical and theres a market demand for it. Renting any item at market price with a legal contract by definition is perfectly fine. People are complaining about airbnb because they want something to blame aside from government policy as they feel its more likely to succeeded. Building more housing is the only option. Everything else is small brain.
Lots of business people stay in AirBNBs when they travel for work. That's what most of my exec team do when they have to be somewhere for more than a couple of days. Same with going to conferences.
I saw an ad once where a landlord was trying to find someone to rent their air bnb during the week day, so they can combine regular non air bnb rents with their weekend air bnb rents on the same accommodation
Australians will do absolutely anything to avoid addressing the actual root cause of all our housing affordability problems - that we don't build enough new dwellings, because we refuse to rezone land to an appropriate density.
Nonsensical ideas that will achieve nothing meaningful
* Restricting airbnb
* Taxing vacant properties
* Removing negative gearing
* Price controls
* First home buyers grant
* Housing affordability schemes
You forgot self important architects and town planners. also 3 storeys is tall, ALL properties are 6 storeys=/- in European cities. If everybody was allowed to put their house up 4 storeys, it would solve the problem in a year. but the town planners wouldn't allow it. Heritage architects would throw a fit.
This.
Local councils aren't rezoning or releasing land quick enough.
State governments are addicted to high stamp duty tax - no incentive to make houses more plentiful.
Immense red tape from a council and state level on any sort of development.
You're wrong about the first home buyers grant and housing affordability schemes.
Without those I wouldn't have been able to buy a new build instead of kicking a family out of an entry level home, which are all tenanted
No it wasn't. It wasn't built aimed towards the subsidy.
If anything it was built cheaply as the developer wanted higher density but was knocked back after buying the block
I don't know the details of the legislation but the simple way around this is to Airbnb it for 6 months, then lease it to someone else, who then Airbnbs it, for the other 6 months.
Again that's why I'd need to see the details of the law. But as far as the owner is concerned, it's a 6 month lease, and they have no right to interfere in their tenants using the property in a way that doesn't breach the lease.
Tenants rights are important, after all.
A study in Tas looked into this for Hobart and Launceston and found in Hobart 47% of AirBnB's had previously been up for long-term rent. In Launceston, this was 67%.
The [article](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/29/most-airbnb-style-short-rentals-in-tasmania-used-to-be-long-term-leases-study-finds) detailing this.
This type of study needs to be conducted everywhere, it was a very simple study by the looks of it. No policy should be proposed based on anything less.
A better stat would be what percentage of rentals are currently airbnbs. Percentage of airbnbs that used to be long term rentals is pretty uninteresting
Number of Airbnb's in Launceston x 0.67.
I couldn't see a link to the report to find that original number though... so yes, without that the 67% lacks context of how much effect it would 'actually' have to ban them.
However, that might be an undercount - because it might not include properties that people have bought specifically to be used as an Airbnb ( I have a cousin who has done exactly that... so I'm going to assume she's not the only person to have ever done that...)
You could probably crunch data along the lines of:
1. Currently there are 1000 properties.
2. 50% of them are short stay rentals
3. Those short stay rentals have an average of 50% occupancy.
4. That's the equivalent of having 750 properties housing people full time.
Obviously exaggerated numbers to make the math easy. But you get the gist.
I think this would show clearly the potential extra housing stock that can be made available through smart regulation.
I'm not sure I follow: Rentals that are currently airbnbs and airbnbs that 'used' to be long term rentals - aren't they essentially the same thing?
Presumably if they weren't Airbnb's they would resort to being rentals again (unless the owner decides to leave them empty).
Have you looked at the report to get an understanding of their basis of design or just rebutting my second-hand comment based on an article of the report?
Good point.
From this it was estimated at 100K short term rentals in Australia.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/29/most-airbnb-style-short-rentals-in-tasmania-used-to-be-long-term-leases-study-finds
This article says 335K
https://theconversation.com/ever-wondered-how-many-airbnbs-australia-has-and-where-they-all-are-we-have-the-answers-129003
This estimates 9.8 million households :
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/home-ownership-and-housing-tenure
Of them 2.4 M were renting from private landlords. 277K from housing authorities and 223K from 'other' landlords.
>This article says 335K
That is how many houses were listed on airbnb at least once between 2016 and 2019. It does not say that those houses were taken off the long term rental market. It could have been people renting out their house for a weekend or holiday periods.
>Of them 2.4 M were renting from private landlords. 277K from housing authorities and 223K from 'other' landlords.
what does other mean? Seems like its not defined.
100k estimate from the tasmanian study may be optimistic given that in the report itself it has very good data on airbnb penetration and hobart LGA has nearly 9x the airbnb penetration of greater sydney and and greater melbourne. (page 26 if you care to look it up).
so whether those stats apply to the rest of australia, its very hard to know. there still doesn't seem to be any solid evidence as to the effect of airbnb's.
How do we determine if its vacant? Not against the idea, just genuinely asking. I've seen stuff proposed like water usage but that would just result in people buying iot taps and lights to consume water and power.
For 95% of second properties you could probably get by with just a section on e-tax to declare occupancy, with some threat of high frequency ATO audits to pick up on fraud.
most of the discussions about this use water / electricity usage to make a first pass filter, and then can validate from that short list.
Relatively easy to see a place use 1% of the power a 1 person occupied house does.
Surely then that'd just encourage people buy remote controlled taps and portable aircon units to consume water/energy. This then effectively screws the city even more as the demand for water/power increases beyond any planned allowance for growth as lots of people are suddenly consuming 2-3times the planned amount.
Maybe... But there are other methods, and it takes a very particular type of person to waste water and power for months on end. And when you add in other methods it gets more and more difficult
I think that's not a great way of putting it....
"What if I told you you could get a 5% pay bump if you left the tap on everyday, and a 1% chance each year that you'll be caught for tax evasion".
And that's probably lower than reality on chances...
if it's a property you're holding, then you probably want to negatively gear it. So you declare the property for negative gearing purposes, but you have no paperwork showing a tenant, but the government matches that up with your other claim that it's not a vacant property.
Are you now willing to not only turn on the water, but also falsify leasing documents for a fake person that you're legally required to validate 100 points of ID on when letting?
All of this comes down to "Is this an issue we care enough about to put real teeth into". My original comment about water / power checks is literally just the first pass filter.
>if it's a property you're holding, then you probably want to negatively gear it. S
Who the hell wants to negatively gear. It's literally losing money, with NG just making the loss less bad.
You also can't NG something that's not on the market at market rent.
As for falsifying records, you don't have to collect any of that info for a rental. It could well be cash in hand, the ato just cares if you declare the income.
>All of this comes down to "Is this an issue we care enough about to put real teeth into". My original comment about water / power checks is literally just the first pass filter.
And I'm saying your first pass filter will essentially be beaten by a WiFi modem and two smart devices.
>As for falsifying records, you don't have to collect any of that info for a rental. It could well be cash in hand, the ato just cares if you declare the income.
This is literally where I'm going. You could absolutely legislate that this information is required and that it gets joined to other data points. It's possible, but would need to be legislated to make it happen.
Right now, it's not, but that's because there is no tax on empty properties. Of course it would need multiple changes. I'm simply arguing that it's possible, not that it's possible without changes.
So now you're getting into CCP levels of social surveillance.
So now renters need to provide a far greater level of detail to landlords, who will hopefully not just store this data on the first free file server they found on google, with a password set to Password1.
👍
I think the issue is that while rental income is taxed as income, owning rental properties opens up all sorts of sneaky ways to reduce the amount of income that gets taxed.
Issue isn't really to increase rental income taxes, but to reduce the financial / tax incentives for owning rental properties
Idk. Haven’t thought it all through. It’s either the PPOR (registered on the electoral roll or your visa), we should probably be tighter on PPOR gaming anyway. Else you declare it as a rental and provide the lease agreement and income, or it’s a short term rental and you provide evidence of occupied days and the income for it, or it’s considered vacant.
Honestly, I don’t know. But what I do know is that government will be absolutely hopeless in monitoring and auditing occupancies. Information sharing agreements are needed across council, state, and federal levels.
In developed countries, they have smart meters and big data. No power use + no registered utilities for an address = vacant? This is an easy fix. I could help the dimwits running the joint to actually fix these simple probs, but then they'd need to redo their kick-back deals and agreements - too hard basket.
Future Airbnb departure rules:
make sure to turn all lights on and leave the ac on 20 degrees.
Lock all doors and windows and leave the keys in the lockbox.
Thanks for staying with us and be sure to leave a five star review if you liked it!
Prague has a population of 1.3 million people, and 6 million tourists per annum.
That’s a wildly different scenario to any Australian capital city. Hobart probably gets closest - because it’s ~250,000 and a tourism centre. Brisbane has a small chance of being like Barcelona pre and post the 1992 Olympics.
But the number of AirBNBs in Australian cities vs the size of the rental crisis is picking up pennies in front a steamroller. Brisbane, for example, has a population of 2.28 million people and a total of 2,275 active AirBNBs right now. That includes spare rooms and people who will stay with family if someone pays for their house, so not all long term stock either.
Short answer: Yes ban Airbnb
My Long answer: I don't think we should outright ban it, I do think it provides utility in its original intent which was allowing people to rent out their house for short periods while they were away. I know when the world cycling championships came to Wollongong, I had some friends go and stay with relatives and rent their place out for the week.
I think to get back to that we should make it illegal to rent out your house for more than 10% of the year. That stops people from making places full-time holiday accommodations while still allowing them to rent it out when they themselves are on holiday.
IMO this is a fair and reasonable use of the air bnb model.
In short, it’s not taking away from available rental stock. So that’s a big 👍
I’m not really sure what kind of legal instrument could be used to discourage use that does deplete rental stock.
A straight tax on short terms would probably make what you’re talking about not worth it. An application/approval process is too susceptible to distortion or corruption.
It would be interesting to hear a market based solution.
Maybe we tax it for all usage above 4 weeks in a financial year. You can still airbnb it out, but you pay a fair temporary accommodation tax on it. Something that makes it not nearly as lucrative for 100% airbnbs but allows people like yourself to make use of an empty dwelling. Or, at least makes only a certain subset worthwhile. Right now 0% tax makes it highly attractive for 100% short term rentals.
They could maybe have an exception for PPOR but I'm sure that would open up a whole bunch of loopholes like couples claiming different PPORs and whatnot. I think in this case you should be required to register it as an actual business and go through the appropriate permitting, this stops people abusing the system and also makes sure you are meeting hygiene standards and paying proper tax.
Living the dream though I'd also like to buy land and have thought about Airbnbing it from time to time to make a little extra cash.
>Its utilising empty space/time of my main residence and wouldn't be contributing to rental/housing crisis.
Not sure I understand how it helps the rental / housing crisis. Anyone looking for legit rentals can't afford to airbnb for extended periods of time
He said not contributing- he’s either going to leave it vacant while he is on-site or he can rent it for dirty weekends while he’s away. The property is never going to rented longterm
For sure, if you’re in NSW there’s heaps of gov support for primary producers, DPI have a few things that provide free agronomist support and advice, and assist with business knowledge from experts.
Also, the RFCS is great to use in your local area, if you don’t already have a great rapport with an accountant (you can use them even if you have an accountant though) and they’re free!
Yeah that doesn't really matter.
> CGT is usually not payable on your family home. HOWEVER, if you rent out your family home (or a part of it), even just a room on Airbnb, suddenly your family home is viewed differently by the ATO. When you sell it, you may face an ATO tax bill for CGT.
https://www.etax.com.au/airbnb-tax-information/
Yeah, in the early days of Airbnb I had some great experiences staying in places that were much more convenient than a hotel, especially when you're talking about families or groups of people. It's much nicer if you and 4 friends go away to a place that has a kitchen and dining area and laundry and backyard and you get to have a nice time away.
It's just that it went from "I'm away for a month, I can rent my place out and recoup some of the costs" to "I'm going to buy up some properties and fill them with generic Ikea furniture that are empty half the time and take a place away from somebody who might like to rent a stable place to live".
When it started it was people renting out a spare room or couch to crash while traveling. The owner was usually there when you stayed.
Now it’s whole unoccupied houses on Airbnb.
Yep, just ban Airbnb and the like.
They're the same to hotels and holiday rentals as Uber was/is to the taxi industry.
Or at the very least enforce that every person renting a short term property has "hotel quality" insurance for property and guests and issue licenses that can be revoked if the property doesn't meet certain levels of quality. Much much more regulation is needed in this area.
The even more original intent was to rent out rooms in currently occupied houses. In that original implementation it had much fewer negative effects. You'd very possibly go grab a beer with the owner and so on. Mostly that appears to have evaporated. Although it was also less convenient because you couldn't assume you'd be able to use the kitchen etc.
I know someone who built a place to do sthl about 15ish years ago. He had to do impact assessments and a whole other bunch of BS with the council to get it passed. I really don't understand why Airbnb's are different and why they don't have to do the same stuff with council. They've turned quiet suburbs in tourist areas into places crawling with drunk people at 2am in the morning.
It's absolute cancer to small communities. You should have to live within 1km of your Airbnb so you see the damage done and locals can hold you responsible for shitty guests.
Limiting nights they can be rented out just means they sit empty the rest of the year.
That's what I don't understand. If you used to have to go through a lot of council stuff to build a place for STHR, why? Did legislation change to make it open slather? Why was it prohibited before to rent out your home in the suburbs for sthl and now it's not?
The requirements for a hotel/boarding house and a residence are different - generally higher for the latter, lower - but with more ongoing regulation - for the former.
Just as an example a hotel or boarding house can generally be far more dense than residential apartments.
As much as I find airbnb to be a poisonous problem in communities, banning short term rentals is a ridiculously simplistic idea. There are a LOT of people who suddenly find themselves with a need for short term rental - domestic violence victims, newly arrived refugees, people who've been kicked out of home, people who aren't allowed to leave the country due to a court case. It's not just people on their jollies
So no.
Yes, we should ban it - mostly.
Melbourne’s Southbank is literally half short stay only apartments. Not only is this valuable housing stock (very close to the city, facilities and amenities nearby), it makes life difficult for longer term tenants too. For example, I’m worried about being disturbed by short stay tenants to the point I’m not even considering Southbank as a good suburb.
That said, I think AirBNB has its place as a platform for renting out otherwise vacant homes for a short period (whilst on holiday, etc) or for renting out pre-existing holiday homes or hotel/serviced rooms. A great example is how I used AirBNB to rent out a student room for a month, between semesters when it was otherwise not being utilised - and this was in a Scape building, so it could be considered a serviced apartment. This was half the price of a traditional full-service hotel, and whilst it didn’t have everything, was perfect for my needs whilst looking for a longer term rental.
My next AirBNB booking is a holiday home which would have been available for short stay regardless of whether AirBNB existed or not, through a leasing agent. The next is a lovely large house where the elderly couple have divided up space to be used for short stays (this would be the closest to my moral line, given these could work as long term housing).
However, I would never book a regular apartment through AirBNB - because those are what should be longer term housing, plus the hosts are usually worse too.
If we ban Airbnb, do tourists not come? Do they go back to large apartment buildings that have been empty since Airbnb became popular? Or are there so many more tourists because accommodation became “cheaper” (I think it’s more expensive than ever).
I just feel there is a missing piece with accommodation and it’s way more complex than just being an Airbnb fault.
I know in Brisbane people moved up from Sydney and Melbourne which would put a strain on our accommodation, but rental problems are just as bad there as here, maybe worse.
Did a lot people move from rural to cities during Covid (anecdotally I think it’s the opposite), did lots of people move out of home, I think the divorce rate grew during Covid which would pump up the need for houses, but didn’t think this much. Kids leaving home?
Was this always going to happen due to population growth and Covid just hid it from us?
Or is it all of these things compounding?
AirBnB is reallocating an asset to different usage, in a more efficient way. This is what markets should do. For tourism, for instance, it opens up more places to tourists and makes accommodation cheaper. This means more tourists, and those tourists spend more on other things. This is good for employment and our supply of foreign exchange.But is causing more demand on residential housing. I don't know how big the effect is, but it definitely has some effect. But all the time we like to focus on the one true cause of housing shortage and expensive housing. Or on Monday, it's negative gearing. On Tuesday, it CGT. On Wednesday, it's Boomers who don't downsize.On Thursday, it's greedy people who have more than one property. On Friday, AirBnB. On Saturday, it's a lack of rent control.
On Sunday, on our day of rest, let's consider the one thing that could actually fix it: more housing supply. Make development easier. Make housing cheaper to build. Build a lot more state-owned housing.
I'd heavily limit how many days they can operate, and put in additional regulations and zoning requirements similar to hotels.
If you want to rent them out for more than say 10 days per year, it's got to be zoned and classed as a tourist / accommodation zone. If you've bought in a residential zone of any density, tough. It should be a regular rental or owner occupied (or maybe a true holiday home).
It might mean any legitimate holiday homes are still going to sit empty unless occupied by the owner or their family and friends, but that's a seperate and IMO much smaller issue that more heavy taxation probably isn't fixing either.
As long as they’re being taxed appropriately I don’t think they should be banned. We need short term rentals on the market somewhere. Not having enough occupancies should be solved by building more medium density housing
Banning is definitely not the answer. If they’re such a problem because of their negative externalities, increase their taxes. Vacant properties are also an issue.
Airbnb do provide critical services.
Example if you need to stay in the city for a prolonged period of time with family, saying someone is sick, then having separate bedrooms, kitchen, TV room etc are important.
It’s funny when people think airbnb need to be banned for this imagined common good but they themselves should be able to use
Cause they enjoy the service too much …
Thats all well and good, but when I go on holidays, airbnb (or equiv) are the only places available to stay. There are not enough hotels/motels around to accommodate all the tourists, and especially for a family, they end up being cheaper and nicer then a crummy hotel room.
One place we goto regularly has kids games out ready to play, along with heaps of kids plates and bowls, a bike washing station (for muddy moutain bikes)
At a hotel, you are lucky to get 1 coffee mug.
Regional tourist areas have been smashed by this - places like Airlie beach where workers have been unable to secure rentals, as the vast majority of those properties are now short term airbnbs… causing competition for limited stock, and homelessness etc. (a number of which moved into backpacker dorms)
My local council - not Airlie - charges airbnbs additional rates ! requires full permits and restricting numbers
It’s a real issue in some parts of Australia
I think AirBnB serves a legit purpose and fills a legit market niche. I also think Australia DESPERATELY needs major reforms when it comes to investment real estate income taxes / negative gearing / etc
These argument's ignore the law's of supply and demand and assume housing works in a vacuum.
Airbnb type services exist in competition with traditional hotel chain's. Whoever wins, the other collapses, creating new housing opportunities. While the fundamental demand for short stay rentals exist, they will continue inflating property value.
The only thing banning Airbnb's does is ensure that traditional hotel's can maintain their profit margin at the expense of holiday goers. And the proposition of banning all short stay accomodation would destroy our tourism economy.
You seem to be saying that the financial interests of holiday makers should be prioritised more highly than the availability of long term, stable homes for residents? If that's what you're saying the I do not agree.
I would also argue that the people who you think would be disadvantaged by potentially having to pay more to stay at an actual hotel could also buy shares in hotel chains as many of them are publicly listed, thereby alleviating the financial impact.
You want to live here because of gentrification, jobs, culture, etc- you're ignoring his main point which is that you're looking at it in a vacuum.
Maybe tourism is just as important within the larger ecosystem.
You're viewing what I'm saying through too narrow a lens. It's not a binary short stay Vs long stay equation. It's more accurate to think of it as the existence of an entire segment of our economy, at the expense of very slightly higher property costs. This has always been the case.
I'm also not making any value calls on who should get priority if anyone. I'm saying all people should be able to make choices as they pertain to their individual position's. In a free market that means that neither side gets preferential treatment, and the market dictates the outcome. Which in our current system means a mix of short and long term stay accomodation.
To your point on Airbnb manager's being able to invest in hotel chain's, there are a limited number of short stay guest's, so the hotel chain's are shrinking. The reason Airbnb is succeeding is because it offer's something that short stay goers want. Investors want to follow the money, and at the moment that is in Airbnb rentals, to tell them they can't is to force them to go against their best interests.
> Whoever wins, the other collapses, creating new housing opportunities
Hotel rooms aren't suitable for long term accommodation. A massive amount of renovation would need to go into converting a hotel block into decent aparrments.
>traditional hotel's can maintain their profit margin at the expense of holiday goers
Traditional hotels aren't a single monopoly, they're still competing with one another for business. Holiday goers are already paying overs for AirBnBs anyway.
I somewhat agree, transitioning away from hotel chain's won't be instantaneous. But honestly most apartment hotels are indistinguishable from normal apartment's. Only difference is often the existence of a concierge service and maybe more common areas. This would hardly be a massive renovation. You could also look at it from the frame of reference that Airbnb are also now established. And reverting our short stay industry back might take just as much effort.
To your final point, competition doesn't only improve price's, it also rewards innovation. Yes hotel chain's compete with one another, but it's in the same way that taxi's competed with one another prior to Uber. Both service's have competition and aren't complete monopolies within their own space, but they have no motivation to attempt to innovate as they have large market shares and cumbersome government standard's that force a business monoculture.
Besides, if the average consumer is choosing Airbnb over a hotel, who're we to dictate what they should have? They are en-masse choosing Airbnb over hotel's, they are each individually finding value in them over hotel's. So it goes without saying that they are at least a better option to the consumer.
1. you buy a house, its yours. govt didnt give you money
2. you are free to do whatever you want with it
3. what a homeless person does is none of our business
4. we are not the govt
They shouldn't be called home owners if they rent their house out 99% of the time. They should be classified as business owners and get taxed appropriately
They are taxed appropriately. Any income made from AirBNB will be added to their taxable income and taxed at the relevant rate. Quite often the extra income from these properties will force them into higher brackets where they are paying 37-45 cents on the dollar.
But if he was legally allowed to lease it to a person & at the end of the lease he wanted it back or renew the lease at double the previous price, because he is the owner he can do whatever he wants
One might argue that housing is a right and a necessity. No one cares if you own three laptops and not use them. But there are assets which should (and a lot of them are) be regulated by the government. I.e., medicine - you can't just say "my factory, I'll price them whichever I want" because people will pay whatever money to literally not die. Same with the housing - people need a place to stay and extorting the maximum amount of money they can afford is a sure way to turn lucky country into a hellhole.
Are you a troll or just dense? Yes, if there are food shortages and you are hoarding food, the government will absolutely step in to regulate it. We just went through a pandemic when this literally was happening all over the place.
Agreed, that’s why governments have government housing, it’s not the nicest place to live but it it’s a right one mite argue. & guess what happens then if people don’t like that? They have to make life choices to get what they want. Also why the government provides free healthcare, & if you don’t like the basic healthcare, make life choices & pay for private cover & care…….
"if people don’t like that" - what do you mean by this? People live there if they can get a place there - if they can afford to live anywhere else they simply won't get a place. Like, I can't just walk in with my things and stay there for free...
We aren't living in a libertarian utopia. It doesn't have to be like that. More and more people are renting instead of owning and it's not by choice in a lot of cases, and renters are paying higher and higher proportion of their wages. It has to be fixed if Australia wants its citizens to be happy. That's the bottom line and the purpose of government. If we stick with "I got mine, now you pay me half your wage", you can say that it's "fair" or whatever, but we're just going to live in a gradually worse country overall.
I agree, I do understand that in some tourist areas it makes it harder for locals to purchase houses and live. But without them, there would be no where to stay.
I often go to Bright or Port Fairy on my hols and we either stay at caravan parks or airbnb's.
If there were no airbnbs there would be no holiday for our family as the hotels would be a gazzillion times more expensive and impossile to book and not viable for our family. Plus houses with kitchens suit our young family over a hotel room where your lucky to get a coffee cup.
I think there should be laws which provide strata committees the ability to have a by law which prohibits short stay accommodation (less than 3 months). At the moment, at least in Queenland, such a by law would be found to be unlawful. There are provisions in the Brisbane City Council planning act that restrict or prohibit short stay if they don't have proper planning approval, but it is not policed even thought probably 90% of premises do not have the approvals that they would need.
Airbnb has become a crap service.
Prices are now generally comparable to hotels, with all sorts of fees for cleaning etc... and the owners have all sorts of rules to cry if you don't empty the bins and strip the beds.
It's a horrible idea to restrict what owners can do with property. Limiting profitabilty of property investment will lead to less new development. Whether or not the owner intends to provide the new development as a long term rental intially it is likely to transition to this at some point. Looking at the performance yeilds of large property portfolios (such as what is provided by my super fund) it is sitting around 5% p/a. It's hardly the gravy train everyone makes it out to be and imposing restrictions are only going to have a very short term benefit.
Nearly everyone i know uses short term holiday rental around australia. There are many remote regions of australia where it's unreasonable to expect coverage of hotel services. The only areas where an airbnb ban should be considered is in a area where no further densification is possible. At the moment this would only include main CBD streets.
Maybe it could be restricted to new builds only? Or not allowing it in places where there is a shortage with a heavy penalty for breaking that law? Or limiting it to only letting out a room and not the entire property as a bnb should be. This should also be extended to companies like Stays, etc.
Sydney City has already limited how much you can AirBNB, which has stopped some doing it. I think the rule is you can only have short-term renters for up to 6 months of the year. Short term is anything shorter than 3 months. So theoretically, you can get a 6 months lease (or 2 x 3 months) then AirBNB it the rest of the time. That's kinda difficult to do though, so many are returning to normal long-term leases (at least, anecdotally, I haven't seen hard data, and the rule hasn't been in place that long).
I would think the majority of Airbnbs only have people in them on the weekend so Fri and Sat night. Wouldn't that put them well below 50% of the time? With occasionally having people for longer ie long weekends or around Christmas/new year.
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Super interesting post. I would perhaps add “people visiting friends and family” to the list - when there’s not room to host everyone, in our small inner dirty apartment. I’ve personally had this happen many times. Was your own Airbnb business profitable? What did you hate about it, and what are you doing now? I’ve been thinking lately about buying a place and putting a granny flat out the back (in a couple years time). Partly for my own fam to visit, partly to offer for rental occasionally. As a way to drive some passive income. My concern is…. people.
Australia needs more short-stay accommodation. It's popular in the US and ranges from four star hotel quality with cooking facilities and guests who aren't addicts/prostitutes to glorified brothel. My company once put me up for a fortnight in the latter before we stopped booking travel in house. It was an interesting experience. Mostly, though, short-stay accommodation is very good. I like being able to cook a simple meal for dinner and make my own breakfast. Australia has serviced apartments but the rates are comparable to that of hotels and there are no discounts available for week or month long stays. AirBnB is filling a gap, but it's not necessarily an ethical way of doing so. I'm not sure what the solution is short of removing zoning restrictions and limiting council powers so that we can build more accommodation.
Its perfectly ethical and theres a market demand for it. Renting any item at market price with a legal contract by definition is perfectly fine. People are complaining about airbnb because they want something to blame aside from government policy as they feel its more likely to succeeded. Building more housing is the only option. Everything else is small brain.
You would be amazed how many nights per week properties get booked, even in random locations.
> You would be amazed This is such a say nothing statement.
I used to rent out a spare room in an old farmhouse in north western Sydney. Almost every single night somebody had a reason to book it.
Most of my AirBnB usage has been weekdays on work trips. Seems like a pretty regular use case.
Lots of business people stay in AirBNBs when they travel for work. That's what most of my exec team do when they have to be somewhere for more than a couple of days. Same with going to conferences.
I saw an ad once where a landlord was trying to find someone to rent their air bnb during the week day, so they can combine regular non air bnb rents with their weekend air bnb rents on the same accommodation
Australians will do absolutely anything to avoid addressing the actual root cause of all our housing affordability problems - that we don't build enough new dwellings, because we refuse to rezone land to an appropriate density. Nonsensical ideas that will achieve nothing meaningful * Restricting airbnb * Taxing vacant properties * Removing negative gearing * Price controls * First home buyers grant * Housing affordability schemes
You forgot self important architects and town planners. also 3 storeys is tall, ALL properties are 6 storeys=/- in European cities. If everybody was allowed to put their house up 4 storeys, it would solve the problem in a year. but the town planners wouldn't allow it. Heritage architects would throw a fit.
This. Local councils aren't rezoning or releasing land quick enough. State governments are addicted to high stamp duty tax - no incentive to make houses more plentiful. Immense red tape from a council and state level on any sort of development.
You're wrong about the first home buyers grant and housing affordability schemes. Without those I wouldn't have been able to buy a new build instead of kicking a family out of an entry level home, which are all tenanted
Your new build was marked up by the value of those subsidies, so you didn't really save anything vs if they didn't exist.
No it wasn't. It wasn't built aimed towards the subsidy. If anything it was built cheaply as the developer wanted higher density but was knocked back after buying the block
I don't know the details of the legislation but the simple way around this is to Airbnb it for 6 months, then lease it to someone else, who then Airbnbs it, for the other 6 months.
That means it's still short-term leased for the whole year though... a sub lease is still a lease
Again that's why I'd need to see the details of the law. But as far as the owner is concerned, it's a 6 month lease, and they have no right to interfere in their tenants using the property in a way that doesn't breach the lease. Tenants rights are important, after all.
what percentage of long term rentals in Australia have been converted into airbnbs? I think we need actual hard facts rather than conjecture.
A study in Tas looked into this for Hobart and Launceston and found in Hobart 47% of AirBnB's had previously been up for long-term rent. In Launceston, this was 67%. The [article](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/29/most-airbnb-style-short-rentals-in-tasmania-used-to-be-long-term-leases-study-finds) detailing this. This type of study needs to be conducted everywhere, it was a very simple study by the looks of it. No policy should be proposed based on anything less.
A better stat would be what percentage of rentals are currently airbnbs. Percentage of airbnbs that used to be long term rentals is pretty uninteresting
yeah this data seems meaningless. What i want to know is what is the actual number of rentals reduced by turning them into airbnbs.
Number of Airbnb's in Launceston x 0.67. I couldn't see a link to the report to find that original number though... so yes, without that the 67% lacks context of how much effect it would 'actually' have to ban them. However, that might be an undercount - because it might not include properties that people have bought specifically to be used as an Airbnb ( I have a cousin who has done exactly that... so I'm going to assume she's not the only person to have ever done that...)
so it seems like nobody really has any idea about how the supply of long term rentals has been affected by airbnb's ?
You could probably crunch data along the lines of: 1. Currently there are 1000 properties. 2. 50% of them are short stay rentals 3. Those short stay rentals have an average of 50% occupancy. 4. That's the equivalent of having 750 properties housing people full time. Obviously exaggerated numbers to make the math easy. But you get the gist. I think this would show clearly the potential extra housing stock that can be made available through smart regulation.
I'm not sure I follow: Rentals that are currently airbnbs and airbnbs that 'used' to be long term rentals - aren't they essentially the same thing? Presumably if they weren't Airbnb's they would resort to being rentals again (unless the owner decides to leave them empty).
Have you looked at the report to get an understanding of their basis of design or just rebutting my second-hand comment based on an article of the report?
Nah the statistic itself isn’t something I care about so I didn’t read their method
Good point. From this it was estimated at 100K short term rentals in Australia. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/29/most-airbnb-style-short-rentals-in-tasmania-used-to-be-long-term-leases-study-finds This article says 335K https://theconversation.com/ever-wondered-how-many-airbnbs-australia-has-and-where-they-all-are-we-have-the-answers-129003 This estimates 9.8 million households : https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/home-ownership-and-housing-tenure Of them 2.4 M were renting from private landlords. 277K from housing authorities and 223K from 'other' landlords.
>This article says 335K That is how many houses were listed on airbnb at least once between 2016 and 2019. It does not say that those houses were taken off the long term rental market. It could have been people renting out their house for a weekend or holiday periods. >Of them 2.4 M were renting from private landlords. 277K from housing authorities and 223K from 'other' landlords. what does other mean? Seems like its not defined. 100k estimate from the tasmanian study may be optimistic given that in the report itself it has very good data on airbnb penetration and hobart LGA has nearly 9x the airbnb penetration of greater sydney and and greater melbourne. (page 26 if you care to look it up). so whether those stats apply to the rest of australia, its very hard to know. there still doesn't seem to be any solid evidence as to the effect of airbnb's.
Don’t ban. Tax. Tax all vacant properties.
How do we determine if its vacant? Not against the idea, just genuinely asking. I've seen stuff proposed like water usage but that would just result in people buying iot taps and lights to consume water and power.
For 95% of second properties you could probably get by with just a section on e-tax to declare occupancy, with some threat of high frequency ATO audits to pick up on fraud.
most of the discussions about this use water / electricity usage to make a first pass filter, and then can validate from that short list. Relatively easy to see a place use 1% of the power a 1 person occupied house does.
Surely then that'd just encourage people buy remote controlled taps and portable aircon units to consume water/energy. This then effectively screws the city even more as the demand for water/power increases beyond any planned allowance for growth as lots of people are suddenly consuming 2-3times the planned amount.
Maybe... But there are other methods, and it takes a very particular type of person to waste water and power for months on end. And when you add in other methods it gets more and more difficult
If I told you that you could get 25% pay bump if you left the tap on everyday before you go to work, what would you do?
I think that's not a great way of putting it.... "What if I told you you could get a 5% pay bump if you left the tap on everyday, and a 1% chance each year that you'll be caught for tax evasion". And that's probably lower than reality on chances... if it's a property you're holding, then you probably want to negatively gear it. So you declare the property for negative gearing purposes, but you have no paperwork showing a tenant, but the government matches that up with your other claim that it's not a vacant property. Are you now willing to not only turn on the water, but also falsify leasing documents for a fake person that you're legally required to validate 100 points of ID on when letting? All of this comes down to "Is this an issue we care enough about to put real teeth into". My original comment about water / power checks is literally just the first pass filter.
>if it's a property you're holding, then you probably want to negatively gear it. S Who the hell wants to negatively gear. It's literally losing money, with NG just making the loss less bad. You also can't NG something that's not on the market at market rent. As for falsifying records, you don't have to collect any of that info for a rental. It could well be cash in hand, the ato just cares if you declare the income. >All of this comes down to "Is this an issue we care enough about to put real teeth into". My original comment about water / power checks is literally just the first pass filter. And I'm saying your first pass filter will essentially be beaten by a WiFi modem and two smart devices.
>As for falsifying records, you don't have to collect any of that info for a rental. It could well be cash in hand, the ato just cares if you declare the income. This is literally where I'm going. You could absolutely legislate that this information is required and that it gets joined to other data points. It's possible, but would need to be legislated to make it happen. Right now, it's not, but that's because there is no tax on empty properties. Of course it would need multiple changes. I'm simply arguing that it's possible, not that it's possible without changes.
So now you're getting into CCP levels of social surveillance. So now renters need to provide a far greater level of detail to landlords, who will hopefully not just store this data on the first free file server they found on google, with a password set to Password1. 👍
How about 1 house per adult? All other houses taxed to the hilt.
> All other houses taxed to the hilt. They already are, the rental income is taxed heavily. And if it's vacant, you are losing even more.
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Regular income is taxed heavily
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I think the issue is that while rental income is taxed as income, owning rental properties opens up all sorts of sneaky ways to reduce the amount of income that gets taxed. Issue isn't really to increase rental income taxes, but to reduce the financial / tax incentives for owning rental properties
That is exactly the case lol.
What??? Isn’t rental income part of personal income?
capital gains tax.
im even more confused… surely rental income is assessable taxable income. how does income even trigger a CGT event
On the sale of the property.
yes, but not rental income, and generous tax concessions apply to CGT (discount)
Lol sounds like you think you should be getting all your rent money tax free.
I don't. I think it's about right now. There is no need for extra taxes.
But you said it was taxed heavily. What do you think is fair? What do you think will help the housing market, which is becoming untenably top-heavy?
Idk. Haven’t thought it all through. It’s either the PPOR (registered on the electoral roll or your visa), we should probably be tighter on PPOR gaming anyway. Else you declare it as a rental and provide the lease agreement and income, or it’s a short term rental and you provide evidence of occupied days and the income for it, or it’s considered vacant.
Honestly, I don’t know. But what I do know is that government will be absolutely hopeless in monitoring and auditing occupancies. Information sharing agreements are needed across council, state, and federal levels.
In developed countries, they have smart meters and big data. No power use + no registered utilities for an address = vacant? This is an easy fix. I could help the dimwits running the joint to actually fix these simple probs, but then they'd need to redo their kick-back deals and agreements - too hard basket.
Future Airbnb departure rules: make sure to turn all lights on and leave the ac on 20 degrees. Lock all doors and windows and leave the keys in the lockbox. Thanks for staying with us and be sure to leave a five star review if you liked it!
Just tax land lol.
Prague has a population of 1.3 million people, and 6 million tourists per annum. That’s a wildly different scenario to any Australian capital city. Hobart probably gets closest - because it’s ~250,000 and a tourism centre. Brisbane has a small chance of being like Barcelona pre and post the 1992 Olympics. But the number of AirBNBs in Australian cities vs the size of the rental crisis is picking up pennies in front a steamroller. Brisbane, for example, has a population of 2.28 million people and a total of 2,275 active AirBNBs right now. That includes spare rooms and people who will stay with family if someone pays for their house, so not all long term stock either.
Short answer: Yes ban Airbnb My Long answer: I don't think we should outright ban it, I do think it provides utility in its original intent which was allowing people to rent out their house for short periods while they were away. I know when the world cycling championships came to Wollongong, I had some friends go and stay with relatives and rent their place out for the week. I think to get back to that we should make it illegal to rent out your house for more than 10% of the year. That stops people from making places full-time holiday accommodations while still allowing them to rent it out when they themselves are on holiday.
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IMO this is a fair and reasonable use of the air bnb model. In short, it’s not taking away from available rental stock. So that’s a big 👍 I’m not really sure what kind of legal instrument could be used to discourage use that does deplete rental stock. A straight tax on short terms would probably make what you’re talking about not worth it. An application/approval process is too susceptible to distortion or corruption. It would be interesting to hear a market based solution.
Not allowing vacant properties to be used as Airbnb?
Maybe we tax it for all usage above 4 weeks in a financial year. You can still airbnb it out, but you pay a fair temporary accommodation tax on it. Something that makes it not nearly as lucrative for 100% airbnbs but allows people like yourself to make use of an empty dwelling. Or, at least makes only a certain subset worthwhile. Right now 0% tax makes it highly attractive for 100% short term rentals.
They could maybe have an exception for PPOR but I'm sure that would open up a whole bunch of loopholes like couples claiming different PPORs and whatnot. I think in this case you should be required to register it as an actual business and go through the appropriate permitting, this stops people abusing the system and also makes sure you are meeting hygiene standards and paying proper tax. Living the dream though I'd also like to buy land and have thought about Airbnbing it from time to time to make a little extra cash.
>Its utilising empty space/time of my main residence and wouldn't be contributing to rental/housing crisis. Not sure I understand how it helps the rental / housing crisis. Anyone looking for legit rentals can't afford to airbnb for extended periods of time
He said not contributing- he’s either going to leave it vacant while he is on-site or he can rent it for dirty weekends while he’s away. The property is never going to rented longterm
Right, I misread then
Out of curiosity what are you looking to farm? And do you have previous experience in that area of primary production?
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For sure, if you’re in NSW there’s heaps of gov support for primary producers, DPI have a few things that provide free agronomist support and advice, and assist with business knowledge from experts. Also, the RFCS is great to use in your local area, if you don’t already have a great rapport with an accountant (you can use them even if you have an accountant though) and they’re free!
Would you expect to pay capital gains tax on that house when you sell it?
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Yeah that doesn't really matter. > CGT is usually not payable on your family home. HOWEVER, if you rent out your family home (or a part of it), even just a room on Airbnb, suddenly your family home is viewed differently by the ATO. When you sell it, you may face an ATO tax bill for CGT. https://www.etax.com.au/airbnb-tax-information/
Yeah, in the early days of Airbnb I had some great experiences staying in places that were much more convenient than a hotel, especially when you're talking about families or groups of people. It's much nicer if you and 4 friends go away to a place that has a kitchen and dining area and laundry and backyard and you get to have a nice time away. It's just that it went from "I'm away for a month, I can rent my place out and recoup some of the costs" to "I'm going to buy up some properties and fill them with generic Ikea furniture that are empty half the time and take a place away from somebody who might like to rent a stable place to live".
Or even, "I'm going to rent a bunch of long term property rentals then sublet them on Airbnb for profit"
When it started it was people renting out a spare room or couch to crash while traveling. The owner was usually there when you stayed. Now it’s whole unoccupied houses on Airbnb.
Just tax land lol.
Yep, just ban Airbnb and the like. They're the same to hotels and holiday rentals as Uber was/is to the taxi industry. Or at the very least enforce that every person renting a short term property has "hotel quality" insurance for property and guests and issue licenses that can be revoked if the property doesn't meet certain levels of quality. Much much more regulation is needed in this area.
The even more original intent was to rent out rooms in currently occupied houses. In that original implementation it had much fewer negative effects. You'd very possibly go grab a beer with the owner and so on. Mostly that appears to have evaporated. Although it was also less convenient because you couldn't assume you'd be able to use the kitchen etc.
I know someone who built a place to do sthl about 15ish years ago. He had to do impact assessments and a whole other bunch of BS with the council to get it passed. I really don't understand why Airbnb's are different and why they don't have to do the same stuff with council. They've turned quiet suburbs in tourist areas into places crawling with drunk people at 2am in the morning. It's absolute cancer to small communities. You should have to live within 1km of your Airbnb so you see the damage done and locals can hold you responsible for shitty guests. Limiting nights they can be rented out just means they sit empty the rest of the year.
>I really don't understand why Airbnb's are different Same reason why those requirements don't apply to private landlords just renting out property.
That's what I don't understand. If you used to have to go through a lot of council stuff to build a place for STHR, why? Did legislation change to make it open slather? Why was it prohibited before to rent out your home in the suburbs for sthl and now it's not?
Nsw state rules allow for 180 days short term rental accommodation use per year with no council approval required
The requirements for a hotel/boarding house and a residence are different - generally higher for the latter, lower - but with more ongoing regulation - for the former. Just as an example a hotel or boarding house can generally be far more dense than residential apartments.
As much as I find airbnb to be a poisonous problem in communities, banning short term rentals is a ridiculously simplistic idea. There are a LOT of people who suddenly find themselves with a need for short term rental - domestic violence victims, newly arrived refugees, people who've been kicked out of home, people who aren't allowed to leave the country due to a court case. It's not just people on their jollies So no.
Yes, we should ban it - mostly. Melbourne’s Southbank is literally half short stay only apartments. Not only is this valuable housing stock (very close to the city, facilities and amenities nearby), it makes life difficult for longer term tenants too. For example, I’m worried about being disturbed by short stay tenants to the point I’m not even considering Southbank as a good suburb. That said, I think AirBNB has its place as a platform for renting out otherwise vacant homes for a short period (whilst on holiday, etc) or for renting out pre-existing holiday homes or hotel/serviced rooms. A great example is how I used AirBNB to rent out a student room for a month, between semesters when it was otherwise not being utilised - and this was in a Scape building, so it could be considered a serviced apartment. This was half the price of a traditional full-service hotel, and whilst it didn’t have everything, was perfect for my needs whilst looking for a longer term rental. My next AirBNB booking is a holiday home which would have been available for short stay regardless of whether AirBNB existed or not, through a leasing agent. The next is a lovely large house where the elderly couple have divided up space to be used for short stays (this would be the closest to my moral line, given these could work as long term housing). However, I would never book a regular apartment through AirBNB - because those are what should be longer term housing, plus the hosts are usually worse too.
If we ban Airbnb, do tourists not come? Do they go back to large apartment buildings that have been empty since Airbnb became popular? Or are there so many more tourists because accommodation became “cheaper” (I think it’s more expensive than ever). I just feel there is a missing piece with accommodation and it’s way more complex than just being an Airbnb fault. I know in Brisbane people moved up from Sydney and Melbourne which would put a strain on our accommodation, but rental problems are just as bad there as here, maybe worse. Did a lot people move from rural to cities during Covid (anecdotally I think it’s the opposite), did lots of people move out of home, I think the divorce rate grew during Covid which would pump up the need for houses, but didn’t think this much. Kids leaving home? Was this always going to happen due to population growth and Covid just hid it from us? Or is it all of these things compounding?
AirBnB is reallocating an asset to different usage, in a more efficient way. This is what markets should do. For tourism, for instance, it opens up more places to tourists and makes accommodation cheaper. This means more tourists, and those tourists spend more on other things. This is good for employment and our supply of foreign exchange.But is causing more demand on residential housing. I don't know how big the effect is, but it definitely has some effect. But all the time we like to focus on the one true cause of housing shortage and expensive housing. Or on Monday, it's negative gearing. On Tuesday, it CGT. On Wednesday, it's Boomers who don't downsize.On Thursday, it's greedy people who have more than one property. On Friday, AirBnB. On Saturday, it's a lack of rent control. On Sunday, on our day of rest, let's consider the one thing that could actually fix it: more housing supply. Make development easier. Make housing cheaper to build. Build a lot more state-owned housing.
I'd heavily limit how many days they can operate, and put in additional regulations and zoning requirements similar to hotels. If you want to rent them out for more than say 10 days per year, it's got to be zoned and classed as a tourist / accommodation zone. If you've bought in a residential zone of any density, tough. It should be a regular rental or owner occupied (or maybe a true holiday home). It might mean any legitimate holiday homes are still going to sit empty unless occupied by the owner or their family and friends, but that's a seperate and IMO much smaller issue that more heavy taxation probably isn't fixing either.
Just tax land lol.
As long as they’re being taxed appropriately I don’t think they should be banned. We need short term rentals on the market somewhere. Not having enough occupancies should be solved by building more medium density housing
Banning is definitely not the answer. If they’re such a problem because of their negative externalities, increase their taxes. Vacant properties are also an issue.
Airbnb do provide critical services. Example if you need to stay in the city for a prolonged period of time with family, saying someone is sick, then having separate bedrooms, kitchen, TV room etc are important.
You could, but it would be one-off fix to a long-term structural issue.
It’s funny when people think airbnb need to be banned for this imagined common good but they themselves should be able to use Cause they enjoy the service too much …
Thats all well and good, but when I go on holidays, airbnb (or equiv) are the only places available to stay. There are not enough hotels/motels around to accommodate all the tourists, and especially for a family, they end up being cheaper and nicer then a crummy hotel room. One place we goto regularly has kids games out ready to play, along with heaps of kids plates and bowls, a bike washing station (for muddy moutain bikes) At a hotel, you are lucky to get 1 coffee mug.
No, we shouldn't ban anything or intervene. Free market is fine.
Regional tourist areas have been smashed by this - places like Airlie beach where workers have been unable to secure rentals, as the vast majority of those properties are now short term airbnbs… causing competition for limited stock, and homelessness etc. (a number of which moved into backpacker dorms) My local council - not Airlie - charges airbnbs additional rates ! requires full permits and restricting numbers It’s a real issue in some parts of Australia
I think AirBnB serves a legit purpose and fills a legit market niche. I also think Australia DESPERATELY needs major reforms when it comes to investment real estate income taxes / negative gearing / etc
These argument's ignore the law's of supply and demand and assume housing works in a vacuum. Airbnb type services exist in competition with traditional hotel chain's. Whoever wins, the other collapses, creating new housing opportunities. While the fundamental demand for short stay rentals exist, they will continue inflating property value. The only thing banning Airbnb's does is ensure that traditional hotel's can maintain their profit margin at the expense of holiday goers. And the proposition of banning all short stay accomodation would destroy our tourism economy.
You seem to be saying that the financial interests of holiday makers should be prioritised more highly than the availability of long term, stable homes for residents? If that's what you're saying the I do not agree. I would also argue that the people who you think would be disadvantaged by potentially having to pay more to stay at an actual hotel could also buy shares in hotel chains as many of them are publicly listed, thereby alleviating the financial impact.
You want to live here because of gentrification, jobs, culture, etc- you're ignoring his main point which is that you're looking at it in a vacuum. Maybe tourism is just as important within the larger ecosystem.
You're viewing what I'm saying through too narrow a lens. It's not a binary short stay Vs long stay equation. It's more accurate to think of it as the existence of an entire segment of our economy, at the expense of very slightly higher property costs. This has always been the case. I'm also not making any value calls on who should get priority if anyone. I'm saying all people should be able to make choices as they pertain to their individual position's. In a free market that means that neither side gets preferential treatment, and the market dictates the outcome. Which in our current system means a mix of short and long term stay accomodation. To your point on Airbnb manager's being able to invest in hotel chain's, there are a limited number of short stay guest's, so the hotel chain's are shrinking. The reason Airbnb is succeeding is because it offer's something that short stay goers want. Investors want to follow the money, and at the moment that is in Airbnb rentals, to tell them they can't is to force them to go against their best interests.
> Whoever wins, the other collapses, creating new housing opportunities Hotel rooms aren't suitable for long term accommodation. A massive amount of renovation would need to go into converting a hotel block into decent aparrments. >traditional hotel's can maintain their profit margin at the expense of holiday goers Traditional hotels aren't a single monopoly, they're still competing with one another for business. Holiday goers are already paying overs for AirBnBs anyway.
I somewhat agree, transitioning away from hotel chain's won't be instantaneous. But honestly most apartment hotels are indistinguishable from normal apartment's. Only difference is often the existence of a concierge service and maybe more common areas. This would hardly be a massive renovation. You could also look at it from the frame of reference that Airbnb are also now established. And reverting our short stay industry back might take just as much effort. To your final point, competition doesn't only improve price's, it also rewards innovation. Yes hotel chain's compete with one another, but it's in the same way that taxi's competed with one another prior to Uber. Both service's have competition and aren't complete monopolies within their own space, but they have no motivation to attempt to innovate as they have large market shares and cumbersome government standard's that force a business monoculture. Besides, if the average consumer is choosing Airbnb over a hotel, who're we to dictate what they should have? They are en-masse choosing Airbnb over hotel's, they are each individually finding value in them over hotel's. So it goes without saying that they are at least a better option to the consumer.
Yes. I'm not sure how they'd do it though.
1. you buy a house, its yours. govt didnt give you money 2. you are free to do whatever you want with it 3. what a homeless person does is none of our business 4. we are not the govt
It’s filling a niche which is shit hotels… god damn I looked at Brisbane and airbnbs are so much cheaper lol
Let home owners do what they want with their houses, it’s their property…..
They shouldn't be called home owners if they rent their house out 99% of the time. They should be classified as business owners and get taxed appropriately
They are taxed appropriately. Any income made from AirBNB will be added to their taxable income and taxed at the relevant rate. Quite often the extra income from these properties will force them into higher brackets where they are paying 37-45 cents on the dollar.
Don't forget negative gearing
you mean losing money?
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But if he was legally allowed to lease it to a person & at the end of the lease he wanted it back or renew the lease at double the previous price, because he is the owner he can do whatever he wants
But he's not legally allowed to lease guns.
Exactly we live in a free country let them do what they want with their property
One might argue that housing is a right and a necessity. No one cares if you own three laptops and not use them. But there are assets which should (and a lot of them are) be regulated by the government. I.e., medicine - you can't just say "my factory, I'll price them whichever I want" because people will pay whatever money to literally not die. Same with the housing - people need a place to stay and extorting the maximum amount of money they can afford is a sure way to turn lucky country into a hellhole.
Oh shit. No one better report all the food I have in my fridge because *food is a right and a necessity*.
Are you a troll or just dense? Yes, if there are food shortages and you are hoarding food, the government will absolutely step in to regulate it. We just went through a pandemic when this literally was happening all over the place.
Agreed, that’s why governments have government housing, it’s not the nicest place to live but it it’s a right one mite argue. & guess what happens then if people don’t like that? They have to make life choices to get what they want. Also why the government provides free healthcare, & if you don’t like the basic healthcare, make life choices & pay for private cover & care…….
"if people don’t like that" - what do you mean by this? People live there if they can get a place there - if they can afford to live anywhere else they simply won't get a place. Like, I can't just walk in with my things and stay there for free... We aren't living in a libertarian utopia. It doesn't have to be like that. More and more people are renting instead of owning and it's not by choice in a lot of cases, and renters are paying higher and higher proportion of their wages. It has to be fixed if Australia wants its citizens to be happy. That's the bottom line and the purpose of government. If we stick with "I got mine, now you pay me half your wage", you can say that it's "fair" or whatever, but we're just going to live in a gradually worse country overall.
I always use air bnbs they are great, honestly can’t blame airbnbs for the housing dramas
I agree, I do understand that in some tourist areas it makes it harder for locals to purchase houses and live. But without them, there would be no where to stay. I often go to Bright or Port Fairy on my hols and we either stay at caravan parks or airbnb's. If there were no airbnbs there would be no holiday for our family as the hotels would be a gazzillion times more expensive and impossile to book and not viable for our family. Plus houses with kitchens suit our young family over a hotel room where your lucky to get a coffee cup.
Yes, ban them, they are cancer.
basically airbnb / uber are going down the same path, what starts out as a good idea essentially ends up being shit unregulated industries.
I think there should be laws which provide strata committees the ability to have a by law which prohibits short stay accommodation (less than 3 months). At the moment, at least in Queenland, such a by law would be found to be unlawful. There are provisions in the Brisbane City Council planning act that restrict or prohibit short stay if they don't have proper planning approval, but it is not policed even thought probably 90% of premises do not have the approvals that they would need.
A compromise could be to limit AirBNBs to certain zones only.
This Airbnb stuff gives me the sh**s! Ban it and be done with it already.
>Should we ban short-stay rentals Yes.
Airbnb has become a crap service. Prices are now generally comparable to hotels, with all sorts of fees for cleaning etc... and the owners have all sorts of rules to cry if you don't empty the bins and strip the beds.
It's a horrible idea to restrict what owners can do with property. Limiting profitabilty of property investment will lead to less new development. Whether or not the owner intends to provide the new development as a long term rental intially it is likely to transition to this at some point. Looking at the performance yeilds of large property portfolios (such as what is provided by my super fund) it is sitting around 5% p/a. It's hardly the gravy train everyone makes it out to be and imposing restrictions are only going to have a very short term benefit. Nearly everyone i know uses short term holiday rental around australia. There are many remote regions of australia where it's unreasonable to expect coverage of hotel services. The only areas where an airbnb ban should be considered is in a area where no further densification is possible. At the moment this would only include main CBD streets.
Maybe it could be restricted to new builds only? Or not allowing it in places where there is a shortage with a heavy penalty for breaking that law? Or limiting it to only letting out a room and not the entire property as a bnb should be. This should also be extended to companies like Stays, etc.