Paper prepared for the Noosa Shire Council in February 2019. A pity we then had an election delivering us a Mayor and Councillors who seem to have chosen to shelve (bury??) it.
An excerpt here, with the full PDF attached.
"The Gurran et al. report for the Australian Coastal Councils Association notes that in some localities, attempts to increase housing supply for low income residents by way of new residential developments, including detached homes and medium density apartments, has resulted in those properties being purchased by investors to list as holiday rentals. Thus efforts to introduce affordable housing may be taken instead by investors looking at short-term rental returns. Interviewees in localities within a three hour radius of capital cities – Mornington Peninsular (Melbourne), Eurobodalla (Canberra), Kiama and Shoalhaven (Sydney), Byron and Sunshine Coast (Brisbane) all reported increased housing demand by investors looking for a lower priced entry into the property market. However, they also reported aggressive marketing by real estate agents of properties with potential holiday rental returns. The report concluded that, ‘in these locations, the rise of online platforms may contribute to house price inflation, making it more difficult for home buyers to achieve home ownership’19.
There is also increasing evidence from overseas jurisdictions that the arrival of Airbnb and other such platforms has had a direct impact on housing affordability, increasing permanent rental prices and land values.
Further to the issue of affordable housing, it is regularly suggested that Airbnb offers necessary additional income for home hosts, particularly retirees or those on fixed incomes. This may have had some truth in the early days of the online short-term letting industry, however, research does not support this theory today.
The Gurran et al. report notes that, ‘the proportion of households who offer rooms or shared rooms to tourists, remains small – less than one per cent in the majority of the case study communities. Although home sharing represents a source of income for a small sector of the population, overall it does not represent a solution to wider housing affordability pressures’.
This view is supported by a November 2018 Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report by Laura Cromelin et al. which concludes that, ‘hosts are primarily focussed on financial gain in choosing to engage in short-term letting, and do so more for discretionary spending than to cover pressing housing expenses’20.
Currently reduced housing affordability and loss of permanent rental stock are key issues for the Noosa shire.
19 Gurran, Nicole et. Al. “Planning responses to online short-term holiday rental platforms” Research Project for Australian Coastal Councils Association, Sept 2018.
20 Laura Cromelin et. al. “Technological disruption in private housing markets: the case of Airbnb” for the Australian Housing & Urban Research Institute, November 2018"
Comentarios