News
Short-term lets not to blame for housing crisis, says Airbnb firm
Thursday 29th February 2024
David Callaghan
Stefan Hoffelner of Your AirHost says housing issues are too complex to simply be explained by too many holiday lets.
Airbnb management firm Your AirHost has attacked the Government's plans for holiday lets.
Short term lets advertised through platforms such as Airbnb will soon need planning approval in areas where councils decide local people are unable to afford housing.
The move follows a consultation lasting nearly a year, and includes a new mandatory register of holiday lets.
Now, Stefan Hoffelner, Co-founder of Your AirHost, says: "The government's aim with this new legislation is to 'protect local residents' from being 'pushed out of their communities' due to the rise in popularity of short-term lets in recent years.
"However, the housing problems in the UK are far too complex for the blame to lie solely at the short-term lettings industry's door, and there are more serious and sinister issues at play."
He points to official statistics showing there were more than 260,000 long-term empty properties in England at the end of last year.
And the Government has failed to meet its housing target off 300,000 new homes each year.
"As a business, we highly doubt that house prices have been affected by short-term lets as much as the undersupply and missed housing targets," he says.
In London, rates and occupancy levels of short-term rentals have dropped this year, he says.
"We feel that a more evidence-based approach to regulations would have served to benefit the housing sector as a whole, allowing the industry to thrive."
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