Don’t count Equity Residential among the landlords who fervently oppose Airbnb’s controversial business model. A new lawsuit says the real estate investment trust “brazenly” made money by turning its Midtown rental building into an Airbnb-styled hotel…

A luxury West 37th Street building where one-bedroom pads rent for more than $3,700 a month has been turned into an “illegal Airbnb-style hotel’’— with nearly a quarter of its 260 units sublet to tourists, a lawsuit charges…

Star Mica Co., a Tokyo-listed real-estate company founded by an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker, plans to double returns from apartments, using Airbnb to house foreign tourists…

The short-term rental market in New York City has swelled in recent years as a result of the emergence and rapid growth of online platforms. This expansion has created many challenges for communities throughout the City and negatively impacted the residential rental market. For decades, the residential rental vacancy rate has remained well below 5 percent…

Travel website Trip Advisor said interest in the short-term Toronto rentals listed on its site has skyrocketed, up 350 per cent compared to last year. “It’s considered one of the best cities now in the world and people are coming from everywhere, and I think this is a product of that,” said Toronto real estate agent Amanda Rix, estimating that a detached four-bedroom home in the Beach could easily rent for $500 a night.For homeowners, it’s a compelling prospect compared to what they could make by renting to long-term tenants. Six said this may pose a problem for Torontonians looking for a place to live rather than visitors looking for a vacation.
“There won’t be many options for them … I think it’s great for homeowners … [but] pretty hard on the other end … as it usually is for the buyers and the tenants.”…

After four years in a rent-controlled flat on Potrero Hill, Brian and Sarah Grzybowski were evicted, with their landlady saying she needed their apartment for her grown daughter. Months later, they stumbled across their former apartment advertised as a vacation rental. They investigated further and found it listed on Airbnb, FlipKey, Craigslist, Cozy and Zeus Living at prices ranging from $185 a night to $5,500 a month. Their rent had been $2,950. “We knew the way they got us out was hinky,” Brian said. Their landlady had characterized the maneuver as an owner-move-in eviction, a legal maneuver around renter protections that requires a landlord or a family member to have “honest intent” to live there three years. Sarah put it more simply: “It was disappointing,” she said. Their case encapsulates critics’ biggest beef with vacation rentals: Landlords and tenants have an incentive to turn regular housing into more-lucrative temporary rentals. Housing advocates say there are thousands of such conversions that drive up rents and increase scarcity….

The relationship between Airbnb and New York state and city officials has,
historically, not always been on the best of terms. And a new law awaiting New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature threatens to strain that relationship even further, and it could have lasting effects on how other cities choose to regulate short-term rentals….

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Short term rental properties are cashing in — but one Music City resident is concerned with illegal AIRBNBs and catching them. Nashville
benefits from taxing registered hosts as the same rate as hotels and motels. Only 3 percent of a specific Davidson County area is allowed for short term rentals, but our investigation shows the actual amount of owners renting their homes is more than 3 times
that….

An Auckland real estate is worried that home-sharing business Airbnb could be cutting rental accommodation choice in a city where tenants are already competing hard for places. Andrew Murray of Apartment Specialists said he had concerns about Airbnb’s rapid expansion in Auckland and its rising popularity, particularly in the CBD and smaller unit market. That could mean tenants seeking stable long-term tenure had far less choice, he said….

A new report from short term rental website Airbnb claims the service isn’t contributing to the rental vacancy problem in Vancouver. But a UBC student who just completed a research project on the rental site says he doesn’t believe the numbers. The Airnb report says the average host ‘typically’ makes an income of about $6,500 a year by occasionally renting space and using that money to pay for their rent or groceries. But Iian Marjoribanks who studies housing at UBC says the devil is in the details. “‘Typical’ means that they are using the median and not the mean average, which is what you would normally use in a report like this. That’s misleading because that means there are a lot of people making very little money and then you have a few people who are making most of the money which is what I found in my research.”…