Airbnb to crack down on rental limits in London, Amsterdam

Dive Brief:

Home-sharing service Airbnb has said it will limit the number of nights for which hosts in London and Amsterdam can rent out their full-home residences, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, owners in London will be permitted to rent entire homes to visitors for up to 90 days a year, while full-home listings in Amsterdam will be limited to 60 days. These are the same restrictions placed on non-licensed, full-home rentals in those cities, The Journal reported.
The move follows concerns by some city authorities that the platform exacerbates tight housing inventory by allowing owners to rent their properties to tourists and visitors rather than to locals. Airbnb reported 35,000 hosts in London for the year ending Sept. 16, 2016, with the “typical” host having guests for 50 nights.

Dive Insight:

It’s unclear whether Airbnb’s move will provide relief to housing authorities or, perhaps more likely, hotel groups in London and Amsterdam, and whether similar moves are to come in the U.S.

The company teamed up with consultancy ECONorthwest in October to study its impact on affordable housing in Portland, OR – a U.S. market with high housing costs and limited affordable inventory. The pair found that users who listed their properties on the site wouldn’t otherwise rent them out for permanent, longer-term living, contrary to critics’ claims.

Yet while Airbnb is modeled on providing short-term rentals to visitors and tourists, a significant share of its revenues comes from full homes that are rented out for much of the year, FiveThirtyEight reported in August. And that's the use of the service that lawmakers in the U.S. and beyond have been attempting to limit.

In October, New York became the latest city to crack down on Airbnb and its peers, with a new law making it illegal to use home-sharing services to advertise the leasing of an apartment in a building with three or more units for less than 30 days. The rule follows pre-existing local rental laws banning the renting of the apartment itself.

And in San Francisco, individuals seeking to rent their residence on the site now must register and pay a fee with the city. The city already requires owners of short-term rentals to do so, but it can be difficult to track and enforce the rule.