Air BnB [and other platforms] to be effectively outlawed in high demand areas

Graham wrote: »

I've said it before, there will always be those that think they can operate under their own rules. No amount of laws will ever change that.

Tightening the laws/enforcement will just get rid of most of the chancers.

AirBnB brought a veneer of accountability/legitimacy to private STLs. Remove that and you automatically remove most of the customer base anyway.

I'd be all for San Francisco style deterrents which have seen penalties in the 6 and 7 figures for rogue operators. It will be interesting to see what the recently discussed changes in the law bring about.

I certainly wouldn't recommend basing an investment strategy around non-legit STLs anytime soon for that and other currently obvious reasons.

I certainly agree with Airbnb bringing legitimacy, transparency and accountability to the market. Calling it a “veneer” is being disingenuous. Airbnb give full accounts relating to all Host payments to Revenue and protect both Host and guest. Booking.com on the other hand are just a facilitator and allow for cash payments with no relationship with Revenue and no protections for either party.

You are inspiring Graham.

Claw Hammer wrote: »

AIRbnb is enabling the illegal use of property. The issue is not about taxation the issue will be about protecting hotels.
A blind eye was turned when it suited but it no longer suits.

Right now we are talking about legislation which does not, and may never exist. How many times has proposed legislation been referred to in print, but never seen the light of day? It is not illegal to advertise on Airbnb and they do inform you on the site that planning is necessary. But as things stand, it is not illegal to advertise.

Claw Hammer wrote: »

"As things stand". That is precisely my point. Things were allowed to go on because it suited. It no longer suits. There is no point in saying that there is no legislation. There is now a motivation for legislation.
Hotel owners who re-open in the net few months with shattered balance sheets will not take kindly to competition from illegal Airbnb operations. They will lobby and force legislation and enforcement of same.

Yip, time will tell. There is motivation for lots of legislation about many things, and there will be many a lobbyist around the Dail in the coming months lobbying for VAT reductions, rate reductions, insurance reductions, funding for businesses etc, but that doesn’t mean they will be acted on. But look, if you think a tiny sector will be important with everything else going on, good for you. I’m sure Revenue will also chip in that they do collect a nice bit of tax income from Hosts.

Graham wrote: »

I don't think the lobbying will be necessary.

One thing recent governments have demonstrated is a willingness to implement crowd-pleasing legislation particularly in housing related areas.

As has recently been indicated, it'd already on the cards.

One article in one paper means “it’s on the cards”, I think you are a bit gullible Graham. I wonder how many articles on other subjects appear like this every year. How many promises do politicians make that never get delivered? It might be legislated for, but wishing it will won’t make it happen.


I doubt the majority of citizens could care less about STLs, particularly now.

Ozark707 wrote: »

Do you honestly think that they did not have an effect on the rental market and if not then what do you attribute the reduction in rent prices in the last two months?

You keep posting this, and yet you have noting to back it up. Daft have stated that there are not any significant increases on their site, 20 additional properties per week in Dublin and they are not confirmed as previously STL properties, they could be just tenants leaving and going home. Have you any evidence to support your view?

LLs could be scrambling to let their properties in anticipation of a downturn. There is currently a thread started by a poster who has seen prices increase in an area he/she is looking over the past few weeks and another poster said every ad he replied to would only let for 5 months max.

Airbnb ads are staying steady, if you go back a couple of pages you will see a poster said there are still over 4K ads for Dublin.

Edit: 4663 entire properties listed in Dublin currently.

Ozark707 wrote: »

OK....link below shows the availability for Dublin on daft. On the 15th of March there were 1177 and on the 01 May there were 1546. That is a 31% increase.

https://bl.ocks.org/pinsterdev/raw/234b4a5310a14a32e080/?s=volume

In that time period the average rent for a 2 bed apt went from €2446 to €2182 which is ~11% reduction.

1 bed apts went from €2000 to €1735 (~13% reduction) in this time range.

Now it would appear to me that there is a case to be made that this very sizeable reduction in asking prices is due to increased supply, not as a result of reduced spending power (that will come later I suspect).

(I am nearly sure the guy who collates these figures does not include STL's as if you like right now on daft it will indicate that there are >2400 listings for Dublin where his figures show 2157 on the 01 May. If he is not it means there has been a huge step increase in supply in 10 days but as you say Daft are saying this is not the case)

Daft stated there had been a 75% increase in ads for rentals in Dublin over the past 12 mths, 170 new ads for central Dublin went up the week the Colleges closed/lock down was announced and it slowed to and average of 20 per week thereafter. How are you making the assumption they are STLs? Have you anything to back this up?

Is it possible the 75% is due to new properties, properties which were occupied by students going home? By employees leaving Dublin because their jobs are gone? Foreigners leaving before travel restrictions take hold? Could the price drops be due to the catastrophic economic shock that started 3 months ago? If they were STLs, why aren’t ads on Airbnb nosediving? The first thing a Host would do is shut down their account to stop bookings/queries from Guests. And in case you think that there is no activity on Airbnb accounts, the email queries come in daily about next year.

Ozark, show me something apart from your 2+2= 10 and pictures of towels on beds = Airbnb.

Dav010 wrote: »

Daft stated there had been a 75% increase in ads for rentals in Dublin over the past 12 mths, 170 new ads for central Dublin went up the week the Colleges closed/lock down was announced and it slowed to and average of 20 per week thereafter. How are you making the assumption they are STLs? Have you anything to back this up?

Is it possible the 75% is due to new properties, properties which were occupied by students going home? By employees leaving Dublin because their jobs are gone? Foreigners leaving before travel restrictions take hold? Could the price drops be due to the catastrophic economic shock that started 3 months ago? If they were STLs, why aren’t ads on Airbnb nosediving? The first thing a Host would do is shut down their account to stop bookings/queries from Guests. And in case you think that there is no activity on Airbnb accounts, the email queries come in daily about next year.

Ozark, show me something apart from your 2+2= 10 and pictures of towels on beds = Airbnb.

How on earth could anyone break down the figures in the way you are asking. What I am drawing attention is to the fact that supply has gone up and asking prices have come down in a fashion that has not been seen in the last 4-5 years at least (I can only go on the figures in the link). There are obviously a myriad of reasons as to why supply might have gone up so quickly and one of them is around the return of STL's to the longer term market.

You seem to be contending that there is now only a trickle of new properties being added every week (20) and if that trend continues then we should expect to see less than 5% MoM increase in supply and then you would imagine only a slight if any decrease in average prices. Time will tell in 3 weeks or so...

Ozark707 wrote: »

How on earth could anyone break down the figures in the way you are asking...

You can’t, which is why I am questioning why you think minor increases in supply and falling rents are due to lots of STLs going back on the market.

You seem to be ignoring all the other more obvious reasons such as the devastating effect of the pandemic on the economy, migration of students and workers out of Dublin, emigration of foreign workers, new builds coming on stream etc,

It’s as if yourself and Graham have a blindspot when it comes to this, new ads must be STLs, property owners getting out of the game are driving down rents. The Airbnb listings do not support your theory, daft.ie do not support your theory, in fact, apart from a few towels on beds, I’m not sure what is supporting your theory.

Dav010 wrote: »

You can’t, which is why I am questioning why you think minor increases in supply and falling rents are due to lots of STLs going back on the market.

You seem to be ignoring all the other more obvious reasons such as the devastating effect of the pandemic on the economy, migration of students and workers out of Dublin, emigration of foreign workers, new builds coming on stream etc,

It’s as if yourself and Graham have a blindspot when it comes to this, new ads must be STLs, property owners getting out of the game are driving down rents. The Airbnb listings do not support your theory, daft.ie do not support your theory, in fact, apart from a few towels on beds, I’m not sure what is supporting your theory.

A 31% increase in supply is 'minor'...lets agree to disagree on that one.

I am not ignoring other factors. I suggested that STL's returning is having an effect. Daft would have no idea what is making up the increase in listings unless they had been checking to see if there were pictures of nicely folded towels I would guess.

Listen you seem to have made your mind up and nothing will convince you otherwise so best of luck.

Dav010 has a playbook with a few tricks in it that he just uses over and over to refute points.

You put something forward as a solution to stop STLs cannibalizing the rental market - he'll look for granular detail, poke a hole in it and then deduce the whole plan is useless. This is easy stuff, since you're not a policymaker you won't have thought of every. single. scenario.

In fact any legislation talk is easily brushed away with a simple "Hasn't worked so far, so won't work now".

DOWNPLAY the STL market. It's just 1% of the market, right? No big deal.

Throw a few stats at him - he'll just hand-wave them away. Lads, there could be any number of reasons why prices dropped when a load of rental property came online in March, don't be casting aspersions on AirBnB.

And then the flipside to when you don't have the stats, he'll start looking for you to produce the stats to prove your point.

Those are all pretty effective, but I'd say my personal favourite is when you've managed to corner him and he backflips over you with "If you shutdown AirBnB it'll just get replaced with dodgy alternatives operating out of Malawi and you'll never stop themmmm"


Taking his posts at face value, it seems like regulating STLs in Dublin is as hopeless as the war on drugs

Umaro wrote: »

Dav010 has a playbook with a few tricks in it that he just uses over and over to refute points.

You put something forward as a solution to stop STLs cannibalizing the rental market - he'll look for granular detail, poke a hole in it and then deduce the whole plan is useless. This is easy stuff, since you're not a policymaker you won't have thought of every. single. scenario.

In fact any legislation talk is easily brushed away with a simple "Hasn't worked so far, so won't work now".

DOWNPLAY the STL market. It's just 1% of the market, right? No big deal.

Throw a few stats at him - he'll just hand-wave them away. Lads, there could be any number of reasons why prices dropped when a load of rental property came online in March, don't be casting aspersions on AirBnB.

And then the flipside to when you don't have the stats, he'll start looking for you to produce the stats to prove your point.

Those are all pretty effective, but I'd say my personal favourite is when you've managed to corner him and he backflips over you with "If you shutdown AirBnB it'll just get replaced with dodgy alternatives operating out of Malawi and you'll never stop themmmm"


Taking his posts at face value, it seems like regulating STLs in Dublin is as hopeless as the war on drugs

Thanks Umaro, I’m happy to answer any points you want to make in response to the summary above. And incidentally, I can’t take credit for your personal favourite, if you go back you will see that Claw Hammer made the point about alternatives out of Mali or Timbuktu.

Ozark707 wrote: »

Peter McVerry Trust now chiming in with some analysis...



https://www.thejournal.ie/peter-mcverry-charity-homeless-accommodation-5096643-May2020/

If you go back a few pages you will see a post about homeless people being moved into a short let unit next door, the poster asked who is paying for it, it’s the HSE. The Government is actually paying STL owners to house the homeless short term while the hotels they were using are closed. The irony can’t be lost on you Ozark.

Graham wrote: »

You mean the properties are being used for residential purposes?

They are being used by the HSE for short term letting purposes.

“Last week, Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy said the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the number of short-term lets in Dublin which are now available to homeless services and the HSE”

It’s ironic, the Government is booking STL units, and paying whatever the Hosts asked. Nice touch in these difficult times.

Ozark, I wonder how many of those units have planning, and how the HSE/HS found them.