It doesn’t take long – search for Airbnb listings in Vancouver, and you’ll find ones in every neighborhood, on virtually every street, often allowing weeks or months-long rentals.
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Already technically illegal, but the City of Vancouver has no real ideas how to tackle the problem, with the only crackdowns coming via enforcing other bylaw infractions.
But this week, council approved a motion to press the provincial government to tax Airbnb owners.
“We’re working hard here to build rental housing in the city of Vancouver, we’re not doing it for tourists, we’re doing it for people who want to live and work here,” said city councillor Geoff Meggs.
Vancouver is just one of dozens of cities world-wide trying to solve housing shortages by cracking down on short-term rentals. In Anaheim, entire blocks of homes are rented out on a weekly basis, prompting city council there to issue an outright ban on short-term rentals in residential areas.
But would such a ban work in Vancouver? The city’s vacancy rate sits below one per cent, but the question is whether a tax would be enough of a disincentive for people to turn their nightly rental business into a more traditional model.
“Seventy-seven per cent of Airbnb’s revenue is actually coming from people who are renting full units year round, either a single house or multiple houses all over town,” said Iain Marjoribanks, a UBC student who has analyzed Airbnb rentals in Vancouver.