Air BNB Should be Banned

[antelopevalley]

This started off as a lovely idea. A way for people to rent a spare room and show people around their home town.

It has since turned into a way for people to make money without adhering to the minimum legal standards that proper holiday accommodation has to meet. Even basic health and safety standards such as smoke alarms do not have to be met.

And it has created chaos, reducing the amount of accommodation for families to rent, pushing up prices, and hollowing out tourist destinations turning them into a Disneyland where few people live.

A ban would mean that anyone wanting to rent out holiday accommodation would have to do it properly. People doing it well could remain running their business but the amateurs who haven't a clue what they are doing would leave the market.

I neither have nor use them. I don't like self-catering.

But I also don't like houses that should be used as residential housing being used as holiday lets (I acknowledge the pp above who says it's too expensive for her - well, actually it's not, she just wouldn't make as much money as she thinks she should make out of it).

Equally it's silly for lodges etc on farms and the like (like the Scottish example above) to be banned as they could not be used as residential accommodation anyway.

Should this not be extend to all second homes that are there purely for income generating even if they are residential...

Second homes anywhere that could alternatively be used to house someone permanently are also morally wrong. Empty flats owned by overseas speculators too.

End short term letting, ownership of property here bully people who
live overseas and second home ownership and this country would be a much better place to live. Our young people need homes to live in.

Why dont they rent an airbnb long term, are the prices very different? A lot of them have quite long term lets like 6months or so.

Yes I hate that, we use airbnb a lot and Ive been asked twice now, I put it on and take it off again once its booked. And recently I had to upload more ID even though Ive been using it years.

But because its cheap and I hate hotels or bnbs I will comply with it

An airB&B during Edinburgh festival will make in 2 days what it would make in a month as a long term rent. That’s why we have such a problem here.

I live in a tourist town (outside of UK) that is absolutely full of Airbnbs. There are so few rentals available for people - 3 last time I checked. The vast majority of houses are owned by people who live outside of the town and own them as holiday homes or investments. The mediun house value is now over $1.4M (over £700k) Its a really big problem here and I would love to see stricter regulations on second homes and holiday rentals.
We are currently renting but will never be able to buy and once our rent goes up we will have to move which is a shame as we have built lives here.

@Letsgetreadytoblackcurrantcrumble you're being pretty short sighted, blaming individuals rather than the system that has created this situation. As PP have said years of govt actively encouraging people to invest in second homes whilst failing to meet targets to build new affordable housing stock, together with a lack of regulation.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Only if we ban hmos too.

Airbnb has been amazing for us. With a young baby/toddler, you can’t stay in hotels as otherwise you can’t do anything after 7pm!! It’s allowed us to rent a home from home, have access to a washer/dryer so can pack light and it doesn’t matter if they vomit over the bedsheets at night (speaking from a lot of experience). We’ve had such amazing holidays and memories thanks to be able to get accommodation like this.

hmm. I’m against hmos where it’s 4 people in a small room in bunk beds as I think in these situations the landlord is being exploitative, but your average student flat is an HMO, or a flat share. What’s wrong with that?

As student accommodation is one thing. But turning perfectly good family homes nowhere near a uni into a hmo to charge £500+ a room is shit.

we don’t have enough purpose built holiday self catering units in this country. In many European countries there are holiday houses, properties built for use as a holiday house that don’t have permission for year around living. You can self cater or own a holiday home without the risk of gouging the local population out of a home. Instead we use the existing housing stock, which was built to house people. Meaning we have less housing stock, meaning housing is astronomically expensive, meaning young adults cannot leave home or start a family or do any of the things that constitute ‘living’. It’s grim.

The average age people are having kids just now is getting older and older, mainly because it takes them so long to get settled enough to think they are able to have a family. The average amount people are prepared to pay in taxes for public services is much lower than in other European countries because we are all so skint because house prices are so high. High house prices have so many knock on effects on our society - and where I live the main cause is the proliferation of airB&B.

Agreed

There is a lovely big house down our street. Being turned into a hmo won’t affect me parking wise. Already was going to be four double rooms let, wacking on a massive! Extension to get it to five/six rooms.

As a family home £900 ish as a hmo £500 a room. Ruined a whole lovely large garden, adding to pressure on local services all for greed.

Ok but do you really think it's worth residents facing a housing shortage so that you can have access to a dryer? Your child will be grown up in a few years- how is that worth it? Don't get me wrong, I get it- but I'm no way is this an argument for airbnb that holds any real weight.

We rent out our en-suite spare room to medical students on rotational placement at a large local hospital.
We are not annoying the neighbours or preventing anyone from accessing a whole property - either to buy or rent - but we are caught up in the recent Scottish short term let regulations.
The increased regulations of the scheme mean we might not continue in the future.
This means it will be increasing difficult for medical students to find low cost accommodation to support their studies - another problem for the NHS!

This is why it needs to be more strictly regulated, because so many tourists will not behave ethically if something is convenient or fun for them. They don't give a shit about the communities they are visiting. The worst kind of tourists.

If I had my way the amateur gig economy holiday rentals would be absolutely banned unless it was someone's primary residence while they were on holiday themselves or a room / garage conversion / shed within a primary residence, i.e. not removing housing from the market.

People who want to make a legitimate business out of running holiday lets, paying all taxes and complying with all regulations, should be allowed if they apply for a license. There should be regulations about how much housing can to be used in this way in different areas and if your area already has its quota filled, no license.

You can't just turn a residential house into a shop or a pub and you shouldn't be able to just turn it into a hotel.

Completely agree.

@abw94 Im presuming you're a host?!?!

Nope, used them a handful of times with groups of friends in the UK and aboard, had no issues with them. Great app 👌🏼

We inherited a property with a wee cottage we rent out as a holiday let. Doesn't cause any local issues and people love it.

Can't afford to do it this way with all the costs any longer, so it's stopping as a holiday let in January and we'll be turning it into a long term let.
It is a shame, as was lovely and cheap and brilliant for hill walkers. We had many return guests over the years too.

Is the issue Airbnb though? Or is it locals looking to make a buck on tourists? We have a barn we plan to convert and put on Airbnb/other platforms. It’s literally in our drive. I’d never rent it out full time as only want someone here a few weeks a year. It’s not suitable as social housing or for families. The barn would literally deteriorate and go to ruin if we didn’t find a way to afford to refurbish it (all with appropriate planning).

We live on the Devon/Cornwall border. There are villages by the sea here where all but a handful of homes are holiday lets. But being a local, I truly don’t blame that on Airbnb or any other holiday let platform. It’s local people like us who have either sold up to property developers or who have decided to turn family homes into income properties in an area where there can otherwise be little opportunity. I can see it’s a golden ticket to people who need a leg up in opportunity, maybe who wouldn’t have that sort of income otherwise. Not to say I blame them individually for wanting to create financial stability for themselves but it certainly it’s Airbnb who is doing it in the absence of actual local people either selling up or turning their homes to holiday lets.

No. It should just be better regulated. I've had so many amazing trips using airbnb where there's no chance I'd have been able to afford a nearby hotel. Hotel prices are the reason people turned to airbnb in the first place - like uber I guess.

The one in our tiny residential street is basically a HMO for drug users, parties and foreign workers who get picked up in a van at all hours.