Challenging the discourse around the impacts of Airbnb through suburbs not cities: lessons from Australia and COVID-19

• Authors: Caitlin Buckle , Peter Phibbs
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Supporters of short-term rental (STR) platforms state that STRs represent a small fraction of the housing market of major cities, and therefore have little impact on rents. However, there is emerging evidence that suggests that STRs have highly localised impacts. In this article, we use the natural experiment of the pause in tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to highlight the impact of a decrease in STR listings on rental markets in the case study city of Hobart, Australia. We find that rental affordability has improved in Hobart’s STR-dense suburbs with the increased vacancies from the underutilised STR properties. These results provide evidence of the impact of STRs on local housing markets when analysed from a finer scale than the whole of city approach. The focus on local housing markets help local communities and city governments build an argument for the impact of STRs on tight housing markets.

Keywords

EN

short-term rental; Airbnb; Hobart; COVID-19; rental market

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Critical Housing Analysis
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 141-149
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Caitlin Buckle

• Critical Housing Analysis, redakce,Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i. Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Peter Phibbs

• Critical Housing Analysis, redakce,Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i. Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic