Barcelona will eliminate ALL tourist apartments in 2028 following local backlash: 10,000-plus licences will expire in huge blow for platforms like Airbnb
Obviously it's the landlord who do it for profit. It's not like the tourist just came to the city and shove the residents out of their own home or something like that.
All this would do is shift the profits to hotel chains. The rent will never go down and the landlord will never sell.
I guy I work with owned two condos in a development. The HOA passed a rule banning short term rentals. There were a lot of units being advertised on Airbnb and similar services so he put them on the market when he heard the rule was being proposed to beat the rush.
He managed to sell one at market but the second one didn't sell before all the other Airbnb landlords listed their places too. He had to take about 10% below market for the second one.
Now those two places are owner occupied, and one of them got a nice deal (I don't know about the ones sold by other people). And everything that sold in that area probably went for a little less for a while due to the glut on the market.
Making renting less profitable works. People aren't landlords because it's fun. They do it for the money. Take away the money and you have less landlords.
Air BnB makes short term rentals profitable, a lot of people own property on debt and pay it with airbnb profits, if that dries up, they will sell. They'll have to. Hotels are one of the most significant sources of tax revenue in tourist locations, airbnb offer lower prices because they circumvent the tax system and don't pay a tax rate similar to hotels, the government wants the tourist at hotels. Period.
Imagine if Uber had done it ethically. All the app, none of the shady. Would’ve been a WAY slower start but I want to believe the excellent technology would’ve been enough for them to win. No “broken” card readers, no scamming women in countries with foreign currency (former colleague’s anecdote), no having to lie to get the driver to let you in before telling them later your real destination, reduced racial discrimination…
AirBNB pays taxes too. They don't circumvent the system in Barcelona, that was fixed a long time ago. Now they just displace locals because the nightly rate is higher than the monthly rate. Even if it's empty most of the time. Which is a real shame.
Back when there were "mom and pop" AirBnb, maybe this was a bad thing. Now, a huge number of rentals are owned by companies with big portfolios specializing in short term rentals.
It's become a really big problem in certain cities.