Airbnb does not significantly affect the ability to pay rents in Sydney and Melbourne, according to a report

Update

08 November 2018 00:14:46

Airbnb does not make renting accessibility "significantly" worse, but reduces the number of properties available to long-term tenants in Sydney and Melbourne.

According to a new report released today, this applies particularly to "high demand" suburbs with "significant tourist appeal".

The report of the Australian Institute for Research on Housing and Urban Planning (AHURI), which examined the extent to which short-term rental increases the pressures on housing, revealed that 39, one out of seven rental properties in outlying areas of Sydney and Melbourne "Airbnb listings.

The research team – academics from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Swinburne University of Technology – has defined the term "commercial" as a whole house or apartment intended to rent for more than three months (90 days) a year.

The reasons given by people for renting their homes include "[ing] new people ", thereby helping to" cover the costs of ownership / renting "and more specifically to the management of their" Airbnb properties as a business ".

What suburbs are in high demand?

In Sydney, Darlinghurst and its suburbs near the beaches (Bondi, Bronte, Coogee and Manly) were very popular with Airbnb agencies and accounted for 11-15 percent of all properties available for rent.

There were about 5,000 registrations in Sydney in November 2014, which peaked at nearly 28,000 in December 2017. But since then they have fallen to about 20,000 in February 2018.

Sydney tends to experience a surge in the number of Airbnb listings in the months of December and January – a period that coincides with Christmas and its famous New Year's Eve fireworks.

In Melbourne, 9 to 15% of all the rental properties in Central Melbourne, Docklands, Southbank, Fitzroy and St Kilda clusters were Airbnb commercial listings.

The number of registrations in Melbourne has increased from 5,000 (August 2015) to approximately 18,000 (February 2018).

"The rental markets in Sydney and Melbourne are unaffordable for low-income tenants, so it is alarming to see a slight reduction in the number of available rental housing," said Dr. Laura Crommelin, Senior Researcher.

She observed that in the "high-demand" suburbs, there was a decrease in the bond deposit rate and an increase in the number of vacant dwellings.

His team interviewed 491 Airbnb hosts from Sydney and Melbourne, in particular, because they had "more complete data sets" because much of Airbnb's initial growth in Australia it's produced in these capitals.

They also badyzed the lease deposit data and figures provided by AirDNA – a company that collects Airbnb listings each month – and reports on the availability and occupancy of each list.

"Remodel" the real estate investment market

According to the report, the rise in Airbnb's short-term rentals in these markets would deprive long-term tenancies, "thus helping to increase the invisibility of the private rental sector".

However, in Melbourne this has been somewhat offset by the boom in apartment construction in recent years and by the vast majority of those who are "unoccupied".

"We have found evidence that Airbnb is restructuring the investment property market in Australia," said Dr. Crommelin.

"For example, real estate agents were quoted as saying that investors would pay a 2% to 3% premium for properties generating a more productive Airbnb revenue stream.

"Similarly, Airbnb property managers have told us that their business is growing rapidly, with some investors getting better returns on short-term rentals than on long-term rentals."

Topics:

business-economics-and-finance

housing industry,

Internet technology,

town planning and development,

Australia,

Sydney 2000,

Melbourne 3000

First posted

November 08, 2018 00:06:51