Airbnb and its impact on the UK housing market - BBC Newsnight

like the low-cost airlines before them short-term letting apps like Airbnb and making travel more affordable for people they get to stay in interesting places and as the slogan says live like a local [Music] and if property owners can make a few quid to well who's complaining actually quite a lot of people as we've seen from taxi apps like uber the sharing economy isn't always without its downside in terms of short-term letting apps like Airbnb the evidence is that it's starting to have a profound impact in some local housing markets and on the experience of some local people our research shows that it's primarily a London problem but it's very definitely a growing problem in in other large cities with with the tourist interest so Manchester is seeing a lot of growth and then Glasgow and Edinburgh optically seeing a very high level of growth the London borough of Westminster is particularly hard-hit with an estimated 5,000 properties taken out of the traditional rental market it is taking homes away from people who might otherwise be living there on scale so there are wards in Westminster where one in ten properties aren't permanently in the short let's echo that's not good to be clear no one is saying that that that a property owner shouldn't be able to let a room out or go away on holiday and let their flat out that's all absolutely fine it's the increasing professionalization of this that is making a difference this is what a real hotel looks like regulated to have minimal impact on locals because however welcome to a city short-term visitors don't make great neighbors it's been going on for a couple of years now and it has got to the point recently where we've wanted to move away from it this neighbor of a busy short-term let flat in London doesn't want to be identified because she's frightened of repercussions there's just no feeling of security you don't know who's around you you don't know that when you come home at night you're going to get a good night's sleep it's just irritating when you're just dropping off to have a subtle reminder oh yeah you'll knit your neighbors that happen be they're back now they're going to keep you awake often the first sign of a property moving over to short-term letting is the appearance outside of these key boxes getting complete data from Airbnb is extremely hard but we've analyzed the website to find how many hosts let out more than one entire home that may be an indication that they're operating as a business in London we found twelve thousand four hundred and twenty eight entire homes run by multi listing hosts that's thirty seven and a half percent of all entire Airbnb homes in the city some of the businesses seem huge London's top ten hosts ran a total of one thousand six hundred and thirty-four entire home listings between them in Edinburgh we found 1794 entire homes run by multi listing hosts that's a third of all Airbnb entire homes in the city Edinburgh is top ten hosts ran a total of three hundred and two entire home listings between them in Bristol we found two hundred and twenty six entire homes run by multi listing hosts that's thirty percent of all the entire air B & B homes in the city Bristol's top ten hosts ran a total of 127 entire home listings between them the attractions are obvious unlike residential properties mortgages on holiday let's qualify for mortgage interest tax relief and the returns can be two or three times as big as conventional letting so much so that instead of by too late people are now setting up hugely lucrative rent to let businesses it's increasingly common for landlords to rent property out and and find that property is sublet either with that consent a very perhaps not with their entire understanding or entirely without their consent in what you might choose to call the sort of rent arbitrage in that I pay you the market rent for an ordinary let property on the family market if I then put it on Airbnb on a holiday let market for the same period of time provided keep it full I will get more money from Airbnb and so I can guarantee to pay you a set sum of money and make a profit on the difference it's possible to construct vast portfolios of property in this way creating virtual hotels complete the chicken disk it's dusk in London's Brick Lane it's one of the most popular night spots in the capital it's where groups of people come for a curry and a night out and it's also one of the hotspots for air B&B there are lots of properties listed around here many of them run by the same landlord I've checked in to one or at least I've booked it I've been emailed some instructions of how I have to check-in I have to go and pick up the keys from a shop which is I think just down here when I got there the shop well it didn't feel like a regular shop more like just a guy sat behind a desk with a big ledger in front of him with all the bookings for different places my name was on there he checked my ID he gave me the keys he gave me the instructions how to get there let's see what we put [Music] so here we are this is what we've booked laws of it creaky but pop man very nice really very good value in fact it says in the welcome folder that the entire building nine flats are available from the same Airbnb hosts but whatever this place is it clearly isn't somebody's home this place has been kitted out the whole building has been kitted out for guests it's a hotel looking for evidence of any wrongdoing is very tricky since 2015 property owners in Greater London have been legally allowed to short-term let's somewhere for a maximum total of 90 days in any calendar year it makes it virtually impossible for us or anyone else like the local authority to prove what's going on the problem is that it's not actually an offence to breach planning control unless we're told to stop reaching planning control so they have to be caught and told to stop or then caught again reaching they're being told to stop this and and and carrying on so you have to catch people twice although air B&B has introduced restrictions on people letting out somewhere in London for more than 90 days it's a simple matter to list on one of the many other short-term letting sites it's really difficult to track how these landlords are using the different sites and so we can't really judge whether they are moving properties around across different platforms but we know anecdotally that this has been reported and so it's something that if we have this availability to share the data across the platforms and that they work together with the GLA this is something that we would be able to keep track of in a better way well I I think that the government needs to accept that local authorities have to have legal powers to act to ensure that when people are letting short --let's that they notify if you have a notification it makes it much more straightforward then for a local authority to be able to monitor make sure that the law is being upheld doesn't stop people letting but it means that the law is upheld other cities and countries are far further ahead in regulating the short-term letting market air B&B declined our request for an interview but said they already go far further than any other platform in making sure their listings comply with the law this may not be much comfort to those trapped on the other side of the wall or the floor or the ceiling from a succession of fleeting guests I'm nervous that it's just going to turn into a strange hotel situation in all the blocks without any regulation or protection for the rest of us really it feels like your block is changing I am concerned that as we see this go on if nothing changes the block will just turn into a hotel who can who can stop it David Grossman reporting well let's hear what Airbnb said they gave us a statement it says we're good partners to London and have introduced automated hosting limits to help ensure home sharing is good news for everyone and that growth is responsible and sustainable we're pleased to lead our industry on this matter and urge policymakers to ensure other platforms act responsibly in London before reopening the rule book

Channel: BBC Newsnight

Views: 134,121

Keywords: bbc, newsnight, news, interview, Airbnb, sharing economy, London, tourism

Id: YP3MK_C93zE

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 23 2017

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[u/magsan]

No data, did not watch. Nddnw?

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