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THERE ARE MORE than 5,300 places available to rent on Airbnb in Dublin city alone, with over 6,700 available when Dublin county is also included.
The Oireachtas Committee on Housing met today to discuss the impacts that short-term rentals are having on the rental market in Ireland.
There has been criticism of the Airbnb service, which allows people to rent rooms or entire homes for short periods of time, and which is seen as further reducing the supply of rental properties for people living in Dublin.
In figures presented by Dr Daithí Downey of Dublin City Council (DCC), it was shown that almost half (48%) of the Airbnb rentals within the Dublin city limits are available to be booked for more than 90 days of the year.
These 2,581 listings are identified as ‘high availability’. Of these, 1,375 are listed as entire homes or apartments.
The average number of days per year that a “highly available” listing is booked for is 132 days, with entire homes being taken for 236 days. While nobody on the committee could say that these were homes which would otherwise be rented on the private market, DCC’s Richard Shakespeare said the website was having an “adverse effect” on supply.
The figures, which came from the website Inside Airbnb, also showed that the top 10 hosts on Airbnb have at least 14 listings on the site, with DCC saying this are “likely” full-time Airbnb properties. The top two have 28 apiece.
DCC says that it will now commission a study to report in October to make recommendations on the issue.
Sinn Féin’s Eoin O’Broin, a member of the committee, said that the government is “dragging its heels” on the issue of regulation for short-term lettings.
“Seven months ago, An Bord Pleanála upheld a ruling that a property owner in Temple Bar required planning permission to continue renting the property out for short-term lets. The former Minister for Housing Simon Coveney supported this ruling and, before Christmas, stated that plans were being made to clamp down on this type of activity.
Despite the ongoing rental crisis, we have learned that the government working group established to look at this issue has only met once, and that was last week. We know the Department met with Airbnb in January this year and it appears nothing has been achieved since.
It was confirmed in the meeting that nobody had been prosecuted under the same laws used to make the ruling against the Temple Bar property owner.
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Wheres nama and why arnt they building houses with our money.
It has nothing to do with Airbnb.
@Stephen Maher: and if we cut the Air BnB places imagine what will happen to our already sky high hotel prices. Then we get less tourists and make less revenue and have less jobs!
@Mary Murphy: exactly. If hotels actually gave fair rates you’d see landlords going back to the long term rental market.
@Stephen Maher: 1,375 entire house/apartments are missing from the rental market because of AirBnb. How is that nothing to do with it?
@James O’Nolan: you say that like it’s outrageous someone with a house should decide what they want to do with it themselves.
Many reasons to not rent:
-bad tenants that come in two forms
Ones who complain about everything if it’s not brand new
Ones who never complain and wreck the place
Sometimes they can be both, not to mention the hassle of pushing for rent each month.
I could easily see why people would jump at airbnb.
@James O’Nolan: Who is to say the owners of those properties are interested in long term rentals. Id say most arent and Airbnb suits them better which is their choice.
@Stephen Maher: Good ask… I was quoted 145 for a double room …Tuesday in Dublin. Got okay place to stay for 85..arbnb…you cannot argue with the value…and the places are getting better.Hotels in this town are a rip off..like everything else in this town.the private rental market is a creation of its own…
@GunsGerms: Hosting your entire apartment through AirBnb is more profitable than renting your apartment in the normal rental market. That is a fact. Undoubtable, that is persuading many landlords to take the more profitable route.
I don’t blame the landlords. I don’t blame AirBnb. I blame the government for allowing AirBnb to be more profitable for landlords. Simon Coveney has done nothing meaningful in housing and this would have been an effective and obvious solution. The fact he didn’t just baffles me.
@GunsGerms: People aren’t allowed choice government policy will decide what’s best for them!
@Stephen Maher: NAMA are funding building; mostly 3,4 and 5 bedroom houses, in leafy residential areas, south of the Liffey, with several upmarket apartment complexes also. The better-off are being catered for quite well, as you would expect, in a capitalist society. The Airbnb story is a diversionary tactic to help keep the spotlight off how the better off are spending the NAMA funds…on themselves. Check the NAMA website, especially their new projects since 2014. It’s all there.
Never used airb&b but anyone I know who has used it thinks its great. People use it because it is a good service, cheaper than hotels, and great for families. The bureaucrats and hotel industry don’t like it but why don’t they ask the people who use it – their view counts too.
@iBob101: the hotels fund the insideairbnb site
@iBob101: I think AirBnb is not cheaper than hotels, unless your standard is quite low. If you’re usually booking in 4-5 star standard then Airbnb cost same or sometimes more. Then you don’t get all the facilities you have in the good hotel like gym or spa or breakfast, plus you get extra hassle meeting owner etc. I’m not hating on airbnb they’re thriving so many people must be obviously loving it, but I never used it and I don’t plan to to be honest. Maybe it’s more appealing in other places than I looked in, not sure, but where I Looked I always found better hotel deal.
It has a major impact, in many cities, not just Dublin.
It simply shouldn’t be more profitable to rent out your apartment with AirBnb than on the normal rental market.
An easy and effective solution is to limit the number of nights you can rent your room/apartment out on AirBnb to say 60 nights a year. This wouldn’t effect the casual Airbnb host. And charge full-time AirBnb hosts the same commercial mortgage rates and commercial water rates that Bed & Breakfast owners have to endure (yes, B&B owners have been paying commercial water rates for decades). Personally, I can’t see the difference between an AirBnb host and a B&B owner.
@James O’Nolan: It wouldn’t be if hotels charged reasonable prices. Tourism income either goes to locals on airbnb or big multinational hotel chains and vulture funds.
I know who I’d rather have the money.
@James O’Nolan: its my home i will rent it out to who and when i want simple
@James O’Nolan: Don’t be silly, I thought water charges were gone?
@KerryBlueMike: if it’s your home, then you wouldn’t be absent for over 100 days a year.
One of the major disincentives for landlords is how hard it is to remove a non paying tenant. It can potentially put a landlord seriously out of pocket. Airbnb focuses on short term let’s and there isn’t this problem. Having said that some of the properties that are rented long term are sublet by tenants and also appear on the Airbnb listings. It doesn’t necessarily follow that every property on Airbnb is one less for long term rental. I know a girl who couch surfs and rents her apartment out for lucrative weekends like St.Patricks Day.
@Sean: I suspect that the girl is not representative.
In light of increased rents it is viable for landlords to insure against loss of rent due to tenant default.
Ireland must do better, we are an embarrassment, not living up to international standards. Our current homeless crisis is tip of the iceberg. If they were all to be miraculously housed overnight we’ll need the same number of homes again the next day once word gets out across the continent. We need to plan for this demand and building to start today.
@alphanautica: That’s a very pertinent point. Open boarders is a major exacerbating issue.
The government needs to stop listening to the wailing left. Bring in the developers and ask them what do they need to build 35,000 houses/apartments in dublin, ready to occupy January 2019. I guarantee it will be delivered. Some people will get very rich but their will be no more involuntary homelessness in the capital. Loads of wailing and gnashing of lefty teeth but no more involuntary homelessness.
@KerryBlueMike:
Why would we wail if the problem got solved! That’s what we want!
However they won’t solve it because the rent pressure caused by the homeless crisis means higher rents and a major financial windfall for their propertied friends!
@Con Murphy: Call the developers.
@KerryBlueMike: They will say “Show me the money.” Job done.
@KerryBlueMike: They have everything they need, they just expect more.
Blaming air bnb for lack of housing. Really. If a person owns their home it’s their right to do what they please with it as long as it’s isn’t against the law.
@john: there are Planning Laws, insurance implications, mortgage restrictions and many other complications.
@Tony Daly: Well the airbnb lads are doing fine. Don’t be a nosy busy body. Call the developers.
Air bnb is not the biggest problem. Blame everything except the lack of affordable housing… maybe one day one of them will figure out!
@Dave Thomas: they already know but are choosing to ignore that fact …
@Suzie Sunshine:
Shocked! Never thought I’d agree with you Suzie!
Careful Suzie keep this up and you might turn into a leftie!
Yup, airbnb is to blame for our housing crisis, not inept politicians, stupid civil servants, corrupt builders. Spread out over multiple decades of misstep and mistakes.
@Padraig O’Brien: No its not but it is adding to the problem.
Id imagine its also a right pain if you are a resident in an apartment and every weekend you have a different stag/hen party in your building.
@Padraig O’Brien: Not saying the other factors aren’t major contributions, but Airbnb certainly isn’t helping. It is so much more lucrative that if it isn’t regulated properly, it will continue to be a problem and get worse.
@NeilGoochFerriter: I’d imagine they’d have their locks superglued regularly if the constant rotating of tenants was causing problems for families in their homes.
@Mick Tobin: lucrative for the government too. You pay full income tax up to 55% on the profits. Certainly helping towards HAP payments.
@NeilGoochFerriter: airbnb is there because there’s a demand for it. It’s an alternative to the exorbitant hotel charges. For the most part it’s used by travellers on a lower budget. Sadly the stag and hen parties are opportunists taking advantage of an inexpensive venue. People who invested in property in the boom and who are just clawing their way out of negative equity have a right to take advantage of this corner of the accommodation marked. It’s the government’s job to sort out the housing/accommodation crisis
@Jackie Caruana: I disagree Jackie, apartments were people live should not have to deal with short term rentals who are naturally going to be louder and less caring of a property that you live in.
Negative equity has no bearing on it, a long term tenant will help you clear your loan just as easily as short term rentals.
@Padraig O’Brien: well said
Who saved, borrowed, bought and paid for these properties?
@KerryBlueMike: who are making or extracting very high rents in an under supplied market?
@Tony Daly: people who took risk with their own cash. As far as I am aware we don’t live in a communist society so what’s the problem? Nothing illegal about it too. Just the socialists getting their knickers in a twist. Nothing to see here, move on. Go ask the government why they have allowed the homeless crisis to gather pace.
@Tony Daly: Erm.. This is mine, you want it? Ok.
@KerryBlueMike: you clearly have skin in the game.
AirBnB is not the ultimate cause of the housing crisis but it is a significant exacerbating factor in reducing the already grossly under supplied rental sector. There are many causes and further exacerbating the gross under supply by reducing the remaining rental stock is a negative factor.
@Tony Daly: Government taxes and policys have led to small landlords selling up…This has had a huge impact on the rental market!..It has put thousands into the shallow rental market!
@Lord Clanricarde: plus the fact that landlords have been screwed over too many times by renters that it’s just not worth it for them. Renters not paying the rent outs landlords into a serious amount of debt beige they can get them out .plus the thousands of euros worth of damage left behind . It’s frustrating that tenants can just walk away from it ..
@Lord Clanricarde: are the houses burned down after they are sold? Are they made permanently unavailable?
@Suzie Sunshine: shocking news. So no tenants ever pay rent. Landlords should never have invested. No such thing as a good tenant.
@Tony Daly: choosing to deny that this is not a problem and that its not one of reasons why some landlords are getting out is just very naive of you .
@Suzie Sunshine: other landlords or other occupiers will replace them. The properties will not be lost to housing stock.
Any landlord unable to make serious money with high rents is incompetent.
It is possible to get insurance against loss of rent due to tenant default.
There is a small problem of a tiny minority of tenants unable to keep up with high rents and who should be in social housing because of very limited income.
I notice a recurring flaw in your thinking on most social issues. You take atypical situations and the universalise them. Policy is based on the norm, not on outliers. Most tenants pay their rent.
@Tony Daly: Yor missing the point Tony, the houses the landlords had were fully occupied. When a couple buys them, for example, there will be empty rooms which once had tenants. These houses are not being replaced. This is adding thousands of tenants to the rental market, driving up demand and rent!
In the apartment development where I’m living at least one third of the apartments are allocated AirBnB, others are block rented to Facebook, Google and other new economy companies. It would be unusual to see Irish tenants now.
@Tony Daly: Do any Irish people work for Facebook, google or new economy companies?
@KerryBlueMike: a few but far more are not Irish nationals, especially in the younger demographic.
@Tony Daly: why is that? Our young are highly educated, well able to do these jobs.
@KerryBlueMike: I have no idea, it is just an observation on the area I live in. It could be foreign language competence, established skill sets, transfers from offices in other countries, and, of course, EU citizens have a right to work and live here.
@KerryBlueMike: it’s 100% down to language competence. Yes we are very highly educated in general and almost every English speaking role goes to a native but when we have European HQs operating here you need sales, customer service and operations to have Spanish, German Dutch (and any European language you can think of) coverage.
No more the fault of the tech companies than airbnb! Unless Irish grads suddenly start leaving college with 3 languages fluid + their busiensss degreee
Thought the LPT was to allow local government fund it’s activities like social housing building but they aren’t bothering to do. Shame on Joe public for renting out his spare room and giving people a choice.
@Andrew Dillon: Lpt was hilariously reduced when the chance arose. Who needs the money? Not dcc.
@Andrew Dillon:
Most of the LPT goes to the Irish Water Company.
Oh what complete bulldust!!..Are AirB&b to blame for ridiculous taxation and council incompetence that has us with a housing crisis, yet practically no builders or developers are building houses….think about it!
@Lord Clanricarde: Have you seen the number of cranes across Dublin? I can count 20 from my office window alone. There’s building going on everywhere.
1,375 entire house/apartments missing from the rental market because of AirBnb and 1,302 families accessing emergency accommodation at the same time.
@James O’Nolan: It’s not the job of someone with an airbnb let to house the homeless.
@KingBen: Of course not, but less houses equals more homeless. Supply and demand.
@James O’Nolan: You could also say the same of how the government forced single property landlords out of the market to create houses for first time buyers. Now a house that once had 5 occupants has 2. For ever 1000 landlords forced out, put 3000 tenants onto the rental market..The Government and Councils are fully responsible for our housing issues..
But sure let’s blame AirB&B.
@James O’Nolan: by the same token if someone buys a property they can do what they like with it! Its the governments problem that there is homelessness not airbnb landlord. The government need to build more social housing. None of this is the fault of airbnb.
@KingBen: AirBnB presents a lot of problems which many are unfamiliar with:-
1. It is disclosable to insurers under the duty of utmost good faith.
2. Permanent use for AirBnB requires Planning Permission.
3. It adds to maintenance costs and increased wear and tear.
4. It may be commercial use resulting in an increased mortgage rate.
5. It may be contrary to the terms of mortgage lending and a breach of covenant.
6. It is fully taxable.
7. It may disqualify from the principal private residence relief from CGT.
There are other potential difficulties which are fact and circumstance specific.
@James O’Nolan: yes, they are building commercial. Better tax treatment.
@Tony Daly: So you want more and more big brother watching over people’s property? Laughable.
@James O’Nolan: Cranes are there to help build office space…and student accommodation blocks..
for the most part. There may be a small amount of “luxury” apartment building also.
Another reason air bnb is popular is cause many b and bs are gone and you get people who like the individualism and meeting different owners and there home styles and welcome. Every hotel / Guest house world over has the same lay out now.
When the markets crashed instead of using it to create a housing shortage , the government should of use our money to build houses instead of bailing Banks even if was set up as government construction company who used local building firms it would of create jobs and helped the local independent business.
@: Look, it was never an option not to bail out the banks. Frankfurt, Berlin and Brussels said we had to.
@KerryBlueMike: I thought on that tv Drama your man was not going to sign for it.
@: lol!
Haha. Where is the affordable housing then? Why not Airbnb as a host or as a guest? Offsets high mortgage prices and is cheaper than a hotel. Win win. Also many B&B owners so their business through airbnb now.
Innovative excuse for the Govt’s failed housing policy Got to give those spin Dr’s credit..Anyone with half a brain knows the policy was designed to fail from the beginning.Why would FG and FF et all stand in the way of their landlord supporters making a killing with higher rents. The housing crisis is deliberate and engineered.
@Con Murphy: Have you read the constitution?
Airbnb is having a negative affect in the long term rental market and it’s not the rental of family homes that is causing the problem. Whole rental properties (NOT HOMES) are been pulled from the market and this is in turn leading to a rental supply and demand problem thus increasing rents for ordinary folk who work and live in the bigger cities. Disgusting that this has been allowed to continue.
It happened here in Vancouver and other big cities with housing issues where rent is unaffordable in a lot of cases or low vacancy rates and huge homelessness rates then air Bnb defo had an effect it caused the city to curtail it. Dublin is in a similar scenario so I see the issues it causes. I’ve used air Bnb it’s great but got to see the bigger pictures sometimes
We need to start building luxury safe high rise like most of the industrialised world do. We shouldn’t have to face a choice between curtailing tourism and reducing homelessness. Highrise properly built can be spacious and comfortable. As a culture we will have no other choice if we want affordable property in Dublin.
Alot of B and Bs have closed down incl hotels, I can think of 3 around the Wicklow / Greystones area then all the hotels in Howth are gone Raheny to, Montrose Stillorgan thats just top of the head.
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Lazy argument from politicians to blame airbnb for housing crisis , try building houses you morons
Fake mews
@Science of beer:
Well I have been in plenty of real mews around Dublin but maybe there are some fake ones as well.
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