Short-Term Rentals Continue to Evade Regulations

“Fearful of seeing long-term rental housing drain away to the tourist market, governments have experimented with a flurry of rules” to regulate short-term rentals (STRs), but no city has quite gotten it right, write Feargus O'Sullivan and Jessica Loudis in Bloomberg CityLab.

Some cities ban short-term rentals altogether; others focus on specific neighborhoods; yet others implement regulations such as owner occupation or caps on the number of nights a property can be rented. “But the effectiveness of these tools and rules have been brought into question in many cities that are struggling to overcome enforcement challenges — and outwit rental property owners who are determined to wriggle around the rules.”

The article describes the situation in cities including Copenhagen, Denmark, where short-term rentals have proliferated despite a ban on full-time STRs. Barcelona, Spain, which enacted strict regulations, still “struggles to control the market. Inside Airbnb estimated that 30% of the 15,655 Airbnb properties listed in the city at the end of June were illegal, having been posted with false license numbers.”

The article goes on to describe policies implemented in cities around the world, but concludes that the landscape will continue to shift as hosts seek out ways to circumvent rules and fees.