UNSW Sydney researchers want to talk to Airbnb hostsin Sydney and Melbourne to shed light on the impact the short-term rentalplatform is having on housing affordability.
The explosive growth of Airbnb has raised hackles intourism and government circles, amid complaints about unfair competition andparty houses.
But not enough is known about how Airbnb affectshousing affordability, says Research Lecturer at UNSW’s City Futures ResearchCentre, Dr Laura Crommelin, who is leading the research, done in collaborationwith Swinburne University and funded by the Australian Housing and UrbanResearch Institute.
Airbnb hosts offering entirehomes or single spare rooms on the platform are being asked about why they areusing the service and their experiences with it.
"Those two uses are potentiallyvery different in terms of their impact on housing affordability," says Dr Crommelin."The first group takes a house out of the market; the second is more a case ofa space that may or may not have been rented out if it wasn’t for Airbnb," shesays.
According to independent, open-source data tool Inside Airbnb, of the 32,830listings in Sydney, 61.5 % are for entire homes, 37% for private rooms and atiny 1.5% are share rooms. The breakdown is almost identical for Melbourne’s20,406 listings.
"We want to find out, for example, if spare rooms werepreviously rented to flatmates. Would the owners of large homes have downsizedif they hadn’t listed spare rooms on Airbnb? And are people adding space totheir homes or building granny flats to take advantage of Airbnb’s popularity?"says Dr Crommelin.
"By surveying and interviewing hosts, we hope tobetter inform policy makers who might want to regulate the short-term rentalmarket."
In 2016, Airbnb told a NSW Parliamentary inquiry that its platform lets hosts becomeambassadors for the communities they love while earning extra income to help makeends meet.
"We are trying to independentlytest those claims," says Dr Crommelin.
Calling all Airbnb hosts in Sydney and Melbourne
Are you an Airbnb host in Sydney or Melbourne, or haveyou considered advertising a property in these cities on Airbnb? We wouldlove to hear about your motivations for using the service. Read more about theinterviews and survey and how to participate here.
Airbnb, Inc. is neither involved in, nor connectedwith, this research project. More projectinformation is also available on the AHURI website. ---
