TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2024 /CNW/ – McGill University Professor Dr. David Wachsmuth has published a new province-wide report, Short-term Rentals and Housing Affordability in Ontario. The report quantifies the impact of commercial short-term rentals (STRs) on housing affordability and rental prices across Ontario. It emphasizes the critical role that STR regulations – including principal residence restrictions – have played in stabilizing rental costs within the province.

“This report is groundbreaking because it’s the first study in Canada to demonstrate a causal link between commercial STR operations and rent increases across municipalities,” said Thorben Wieditz, Executive Director of Fairbnb Canada Network. “It is based on peer-reviewed academic research, providing undeniable evidence that commercial STRs have driven up rents.”

The report reveals that the growth of short-term rentals—especially commercial operations—has led to significant rent increases, costing Ontarians $1.6 billion in additional rent since 2017.

One key driver of this rent inflation is that landlords can charge significantly higher rates to tourists than long-term tenants. In July 2023, commercial hosts earned an average of $6,700 per listing, nearly five times the average monthly rent of $1,408 in Ontario. A staggering 41% of Airbnb listings in Ontario are operated by commercial hosts who convert residential properties into “ghost hotels,” with the top 10% of commercial hosts generating 44% of total STR revenue in the province.

“Housing planned, approved, and built to accommodate Ontario residents should not be repurposed as ghost hotels,” Wieditz emphasized. “The province establishes housing targets, and it has a responsibility to prevent these housing-to-hotel conversions, which reduce housing supply and contribute to rising rents.”

Key Findings:

• STR regulations are proving effective: Current STR regulations across Ontario already save tenant households more than $1 billion annually.
• Principal residence restrictions work: Municipalities with principal residence restrictions experienced rent increases that were 3.3% lower, saving tenants an average of $50 per month.
• Province-wide potential savings: Expanding principal residence requirements across Ontario could save renters an additional $572 million annually.

“These findings offer compelling evidence that STR regulations, including principal residence restrictions, successfully reduce rental costs in various municipalities across Ontario,” added Laura Murphy, Senior Housing Policy Advisor at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.

Fairbnb Canada Network and its coalition of housing advocates are urging the provincial government to implement province-wide principal residence restrictions to protect renters further and ensure housing remains affordable for all Ontarians.

About Fairbnb Canada Network
Fairbnb is a Canadian non-profit organization advocating for equitable short-term rental regulations across the country. Comprising voices from tenant organizations, the regulated hotel and B&B industry, property owners, academics, and concerned citizens, Fairbnb’s mission is to protect housing security. Originally founded as an informal coalition, Fairbnb emerged in response to the 845% growth in Airbnb listings in Canada since 2012. They call for a robust, nationally consistent policy framework that balances fair, safe, and respectful short-term rental legislation without seeking to ban genuine “home-sharing.” Fairbnb supports short-term rental hosts who legally rent spare rooms or spaces in their principal residences, emphasizing compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Learn more at www.fairbnb.ca.

Statistics Canada’s report last week, “Short-term Rentals in the Canadian Housing Market,” reveals that by 2023, 107,266 housing units had been converted to commercial short-term rental (STR), rendering them unavailable for long-term occupancy. Comparing this number to Canada’s current total housing stock of 15,495,361 units, Statscan suggests that a seemingly minor 0.69 per cent of the total housing stock is utilized as commercial STRs.

Airbnb Inc.’s Canadian policy lead, Nathan Rotman, quickly seized on this statistic, arguing that Airbnb’s impact on the housing market is minimal and that further restrictions on STRs wouldn’t solve the housing crisis. However, this interpretation is fundamentally flawed.

To accurately assess the impact of commercial STRs, it’s essential to focus on their proportion of available housing units rather than the total housing stock.

According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Canada’s vacancy rate for purpose-built rentals is 1.5 per cent. Assuming this rate is similar across other housing types, there are approximately 232,430 available units nationwide for long-term residents. The 107,266 units now used as commercial STRs could increase the pool of available units by another 46 per cent.

In other words, if all these units were returned to the market, Canada’s vacancy rate would rise significantly, highlighting the urgent need to address this issue again.

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A San Francisco Superior Court judge has overruled Airbnb’s request to dismiss a case brought against it by the parents of a teen who died in August 2021 after being shot at a party held in a Sunnyvale, California, home rented on Airbnb. According to an article from ACCESSWIRE, the case — Elhania v. Airbnb, Inc. — will be the first in the nation to potentially hold Airbnb legally responsible for a victim’s death from a shooting at an Airbnb party, which happen more often than one might assume. In the last 30 days, injuries and deaths from “shootouts” at Airbnb parties were reported in Utah, Alabama, Texas, and Georgia.

Until now, Airbnb has been able to dismiss the case by arguing it can’t be held liable because injuries at parties could not be foreseen and that they’re merely a platform connecting renters with property owners. So what’s making the case stick this time? The fact that Airbnb violated the local city ordinance regulating short-term rentals, which were specifically designed to protect the type of harm the 18-year-old Elias Elhania suffered. Those violations include the fact that the rental was an illegal short-term rental, the owner was not on site throughout the stay, and Airbnb rented the unit to an unaccompanied minor.

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The number of short-term rentals in Canada has grown sharply since 2017, with units that could be considered usable for long-term housing growing even faster, a new Statistics Canada report said on Tuesday.

According to the report, the total number of short-term rental units in Canada grew by 60 per cent between 2017 and 2023. The number of units considered ‘potential long-term dwellings’ (PLTDs) – or units that could be long-term housing – rose by 80 per cent.

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Nearly half of the 22,405 short-term rental listings reviewed by the B.C. Ministry of Housing were found to be operating illegally, according to a preliminary analysis of newly released data from short-term rental platforms that the province says it will use to step up enforcement of new restrictions.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida man who boasted that he was the “Wolf of Airbnb” was sentenced Monday to over four years in prison for defrauding New York City landlords and a federal pandemic-relief government program.

Konrad Bicher, 32, of Hialeah, Florida, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge Lorna G. Schofield.

The prison term of four years and three months came after Bicher pleaded guilty a year ago to a wire fraud charge. He was also ordered to forfeit $1.7 million and pay $2.2 million in restitution. He declined to speak at the sentencing.

Prosecutors said Bicher operated at least 18 Manhattan apartments as “mini-hotels” while using the pandemic as an excuse not to pay landlords more than $1 million in rent from 2019 to April 2022. They said he also got government-guaranteed loans through a program meant to provide relief to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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It was another lawsuit brought by another victim whose fun-filled vacation turned into a voyeuristic nightmare: A woman was secretly recorded undressing at a rental property, her images stored on the computer of an alleged sexual predator accused of spying on unsuspecting renters for years.

Airbnb, one of the world’s largest short-term rental companies, had seen this sort of scenario before. Typically, the company seeks to settle hidden camera cases quickly and confidentially.

But this one played out differently.

An Airbnb representative testifying at a court-ordered deposition early last year offered a rare glimpse of the company’s hidden camera problem: Airbnb has generated tens of thousands of customer support tickets related to surveillance devices in the last decade.

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Barcelona plans to enact a citywide ban on all short-term rentals to address complaints that tourism is to blame for a local housing crisis and soaring rents.

The Mediterranean city will stop giving new licenses and won’t renew existing ones so that in 2029 no homes will have permission to be rented as tourist accommodation, Barcelona Mayor said at a press conference on Friday. There are now about 10,000 houses registered as rentals for tourists.

“More supply of housing is needed, and the measures we’re presenting today are to provide more supply so that the working middle class does not have to leave the city because they can’t afford housing,” Collboni said. “This measure will not change the situation from one day to the next. These problems take time. But with this measure we are marking a turning point.”

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