AirBnB under siege in Europe- accounts for 50%+ of Dublin rentals

Airbnb, the American short-letting online agency, is under siege as many cities in the US and Europe impose restrictions on short-term/ holiday lettings. Today Daft.ie reports that over half of all available rental properties in Dublin are being listed as short-term tourist lets.

Airbnb was founded in 2008 and had 3,100 employees in 2017 and revenues of $2.3 billion. 2017 was its first full year of profitability generating earnings of about $100m while bookings grew around 150%.

Dublin has been facing a housing crisis since the recovery in the economy in recent years while a government agency has been renting cheap hotel rooms to provide temporary accommodation for the growing number of homeless people.

This has provided a bonanza for short-term renters.

New research from Daft.ie has identified that landlords are increasingly opting to let to tourists rather than to long-term tenants. Data up to Tuesday show that 53% of homes in the Dublin rental market were not available to long-term tenants.

On May 15th, there were just 1,258 long-term rental properties available in Dublin on Daft.ie. By contrast, the stock of full homes to let on Airbnb from professional listers (according to Inside Airbnb) stood at 1,419.

Daft.ie says that the decline in long-term rental accommodation shows no signs of slowing, with stock on the Dublin rental market set to dip below 1,000 units, for the first time since 2001 by the end of this year.

Eamonn Fallon co-founder of Daft.ie said: "Action urgently needs to be taken to increase supply, both in Dublin and nationwide. The country needs close to 50,000 homes a year to cater to underlying housing demand - both market and social. Of the 50,000 homes, 15,000 are needed for the rental market with 10,000 of those in the capital. To put the scale of this challenge into concrete terms, Dublin alone needs an apartment block of 200 units to open every week for at least the next decade.”

Martin Clancy from Daft.ie added: "Rents have been rising as supply continues to bottom out nationwide. Despite a cap of 4% on sitting tenants, rental inflation has been above 10% nationwide and shows no sign of abating without a sharp increase in supply."

AirBnB restrictions

In Berlin, landlords applying for a permit at their primary residency will likely be approved, according to new city regulations, for a short-term letting but owners of an untenanted apartment need a special permit from the city council to do so after three months of vacancy without having a permanent tenant registered.

Berlin says the maximum penalty for breaking the rules has been multiplied by five, to a potential fine of €500,000.

Madrid wants to confront excess tourism and the secretary for sustainable urban planning José Manuel Calvo has proposed regulations in response to fears of locals being priced out of their own neighbourhoods.

Other Spanish cities including Valencia and Mallorca, as well as Venice, Italy, have also imposed restrictions.

The rules proposed in Madrid will prevent apartments from being rented out to tourists for more than 90 days of the year while entire apartment blocks will no longer be able to be fully allocated to short-term lets unless the building is licensed as a hotel.

According to the Local, in Madrid's Central Zone, lets will need a designated entrance to the street, independent of the entrance used by permanent residents of the building. 

This would likely ban most holiday rentals in the city centre.

In Paris according to Condé Nast Traveler, the city is taking Airbnb to court after officials claimed that some 43,000 listings on the sharing company’s website are unregistered with the government. Paris law currently restricts residents from renting out their homes for no more than 120 days a year.

The LA Times says cities from New York to Santa Monica, and San Francisco to Louisville, Kentucky many cities have adopted laws to regulate Airbnb and other temporary home-rental platforms, and now Los Angeles is on track to join them.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 15-0  in early May for a new ordinance that would allow residents to rent out their primary residence for 120 days each year, formally legalising legitimate home-sharing while barring commercial short-term rental operations. The new rules also prohibit listing rent-stabilised units on online short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and will hold those platforms accountable for listing only units that comply with the law.