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Airbnb may have put its foot in its mouth before when it comes to communicating the benefits it brings to cities, but it\u2019s hard to argue with raw, uncut science. A new study<\/a> from the Internet Association, a trade group comprising many online properties including Airbnb, takes a hard look at housing stats in Seattle and bats away a few issues commonly brought up regarding the service.<\/p>\n One criticism that appears repeatedly, especially in fast-growing cities where gentrification and developers are roundly resented, is that people are buying up housing units just to rent them on Airbnb. It\u2019s simpler and more profitable than long-term rental, and there\u2019s less paperwork \u2014 but of course, it could limit housing options for people that, you know, actually live somewhere.<\/p>\n While Airbnb maintains that only a small number of units being rented in Seattle are of this type, multi-unit hosts are the fastest growing category for the area, according to a study<\/a> of data from 2015 and 2016.<\/p>\n The city conducted its own review<\/a> of Airbnb data and found that a quarter of the full homes available for rent on the service are not the host\u2019s primary residence. And Inside Airbnb<\/a>, which tracks rental data in various cities, suggests the numbers may be even higher than that.<\/p>\n When asked for comment, Airbnb didn\u2019t dispute the preceding numbers exactly, but cautioned that the data and methods vary widely, so any analysis (including its own, really) should be examined in context. For example, Inside Airbnb calls any home available for more than 60 days \u201chigh availability,\u201d though that\u2019s within the normal range by the company\u2019s reckoning.<\/p>\n The IA study tackled the multi-unit host criticism by looking for correlations between short-term rentals (STRs) and owner occupancy of housing. The logic is that if Airbnb and other services promote this type of behavior \u2014 multiple homes or units being used exclusively as STRs \u2014 you\u2019d expect to see a relationship there. The researchers also looked at investment mortgages, the kind of loans you\u2019d take on if you were looking to make a business out of a few cheap homes in your area.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t seem to be the case, according to the stats the IA parsed. Chart time:<\/p>\n So while there will likely always be a few examples of this kind of digital property portfolio, it seems that there just isn\u2019t enough of it to have a major effect on rent and housing availability. Other factors in a growing city like Seattle, such as the gazillion ugly, expensive new apartment buildings they\u2019re putting in all over the place, are likely a much greater influence.<\/p>\n (I\u2019m going to be priced out of my place soon in no small part because it\u2019s spitting distance from Amazon HQ. People are happy to pay extortionate rents when they only intend to stay in the city for two years.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority of our hosts in Seattle are sharing the home in which they live to earn a little extra money,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cHosts with multiple entire home listings make up a small fraction of our community. We\u2019re committed to being good partners with the City of Seattle and are working with city leaders to craft short-term rental regulations that will protect long-term housing stock and allow Seattle families to share their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n The other issue looked at by the IA study is the idea that STRs are interfering with the hotel business. It\u2019s kind of hard to sympathize with the incumbent industry here, but at the same time we want to avoid a situation like Uber\u2019s in which a challenger is mainly competitive because it is cutting corners at every possible opportunity to undercut its opponents. So it\u2019s good to put eyes on potential problem areas like this.<\/p>\n The study shows that there\u2019s actually very little geographical overlap between hotels and home rentals, and this tallies with common sense: are you really going to try to compete with the Marriott on its home turf? No, you rent your neat spot in \u201cscenic\u201d West Seattle for much less and because there are so few hotel options there.<\/p>\n You can see that in this rather strangely colored-in map:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/a2d7b_ia-housing-chart.png?resize=640%2C376&ssl=1\")
<\/a>\u201cOur findings suggest that STRs help Seattleites stay in their homes,\u201d the IA\u2019s Chief Economist and author of the paper, Christopher Hooton, told TechCrunch. \u201cInvestment mortgages do not spike because of short-term rental activity. In fact, they are negatively correlated. Nor does owner occupancy decrease or rents increase.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/a2d7b_none-of-my-business.jpg?resize=300%2C167&ssl=1\")
<\/a>In any case, proposed rules from the city<\/a> (currently inching their way through the usual red tape) would limit hosts to renting out a total of two units. That would act as an effective damper on multi-unit operations, and if Airbnb\u2019s own spin on this topic (this report included) is taken at face value, the company shouldn\u2019t really care, since it claims very few users are in that commercial class.<\/p>\n
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