City Study Finds Lots of Illegal Airbnb Listings in San Francisco

Despite Airbnb's promises to better regulate the hosts that use their site, and despite legislation approved a little over a year ago by the city, abuse of short-term rentals is rampant in San Francisco.

April 11, 2016, 1pm PDT | James Brasuell | @CasualBrasuell

Adam Brinklow reports: "The San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report [pdf] Thursday night showing that the overwhelming majority of Airbnb hosts in the city have not bothered to register their short-term rental, and a significant minority of them are ignoring the city’s prohibition on renting out entire homes for months on end."

Airbnb listings have only increased since the city passed a law intended to gain some power to regulate short-term rental listings. "The analyst's office says that the total of listings in the city jumped 54 percent between December 2014 and March of this year, coming to 9,448 citywide," reports Brinklow.

Brinklow breaks down the numbers by neighborhoods, pulling tables directly from the report, and does the math on the huge disparities between legal, registered short-term listings, and those cheating the system.

Full Story:

City Says 76 Percent of Airbnb Listings Are Illegal

Published on Friday, April 8, 2016 in Curbed SF