Victoria’s Airbnb market has change into dominated by profit-driven property buyers who purchase a number of houses in well-liked vacationer cities and lease them out to short-term holidaymakers, depleting rental inventory for residents within the course of.
The creeping corporatisation of Airbnb is worsening Victoria’s housing affordability disaster, notably in hotspots such because the Bass Coast and Mornington Peninsula, a brand new report states.
The report, which analysed 4 years of Airbnb listings knowledge, discovered that the short-stay lodging platform has departed from its authentic “sharing economic system” mannequin by which travellers stick with a house proprietor or at an proprietor’s property whereas they’re away.
Instead, most locations listed on Airbnb at the moment are owned by a landlord who leases a number of properties by the platform and doesn’t stay or keep there, and infrequently outsources administration to a 3rd social gathering.
This altering pattern is important as a result of the rising variety of non-hosted short-term leases provided on Airbnb is eradicating hundreds of potential long-term rental houses from the market.
In 2019, 55 per cent of short-stay residential properties listed on Airbnb throughout Australia have been hosted by a resident. By 2023, that determine had decreased to 42 per cent, with 58 per cent of listed properties not hosted.
“There at the moment are extra listings for whole houses than there are for hosted leases, which is a shift away from the unique premise of platforms like Airbnb for property homeowners to host guests in spare rooms,” Monash University analysis fellow Dr Michaela Lang mentioned.
Lang was the lead writer of a report by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, which discovered Airbnb has reworked from a platform of hosts to ghosts.
From 2019 to 2023, the variety of hosted houses on Airbnb fell by 32 per cent, from 73,000 to 50,000, whereas non-hosted properties rose by 15 per cent from 60,000 to 69,000, the report discovered.
Nowhere is that this pattern extra pronounced than in coastal Victoria.
The variety of non-hosted properties on the Mornington Peninsula surged by 28 per cent, from about 2500 in 2019 to 3300 in 2023, making the vacationer area the nation’s Airbnb heartland.
Bass Coast Shire, which incorporates short-stay hotspot Phillip Island, skilled a 30 per cent surge in the identical four-year interval, whereas listings in central Melbourne fell considerably, from 2600 in 2019 to lower than 2000 in 2023.
Lang mentioned the decline in Airbnb listings within the City of Melbourne was a part of a nationwide pattern, with Sydney and Brisbane additionally dropping off, whereas the variety of non-hosted listings rose sharply in vacation areas such because the Whitsundays, Noosa and the Barossa Valley.
While these locations have all had short-stay rental lodging for a very long time, Lang mentioned, Airbnb’s emergence as a dominant platform in the marketplace had coincided with a worsening housing scarcity.
“For a few of these cities, housing has simply change into extremely unaffordable and unavailable,” she mentioned. “Tourists may be nice for your enterprise, however a few of these areas are hitting densities the place it’s tough to get workers as a result of it’s so tough to search out housing.”
Mornington Peninsula Shire Mayor Anthony Marsh mentioned Airbnb had modified the vacation rental panorama within the space, as comparatively humble seaside homes have been being rented out by homeowners “making an absolute killing”.
“We get 8 million guests a 12 months … so there’s, to some extent, a reliance on these vacation leases. But Airbnb have modified it from the little shack that folks may hire out in Blairgowrie over a few weeks to what’s very a lot this business enterprise mannequin now.”
Marsh mentioned many properties may doubtlessly function reasonably priced long-term rental lodging, however homeowners had calculated that renting them out for brief stays was extra worthwhile.
“Thinking of say, Rye, I’m positive for those who soar on Airbnb and have a look at a few of the homes, they’re most likely fairly regular seaside homes which are making an absolute killing throughout the week. But in the event that they’re on the rental market, that may be most likely thought-about reasonably priced, and I feel that’s the place it’s doing the most important injury,” he mentioned.
The Victorian authorities launched a 7.5 per cent levy on short-stay lodging bookings on January 1, arguing it will make extra properties obtainable for long-term leases.
The levy is predicted to generate $75 million in income in its first full 12 months, in accordance with the Parliamentary Budget Office, with all of that income to go to Homes Victoria, and 25 per cent directed to regional areas.
Airbnb declined to remark when contacted by The Age. According to Airbnb knowledge, the overwhelming majority of hosts – 85 per cent – checklist only one property on the platform.
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Adam Carey is senior metropolis reporter (suburban). He has held earlier roles together with schooling editor, state political correspondent and transport reporter. He joined The Age in 2007.Connect through Twitter or electronic mail.Most Viewed in National
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