The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
AFP
Vancouver’s city council launched a review of the municipal regulations on short-term rentals like Airbnb, a platform accused of driving up real estate prices.
“We’re working to better understand the economic benefits of short-term rentals, as well as the potential impact of short-term tourist rentals on the supply and price of long term rental housing for Vancouver residents,” said the council in a statement.
Vancouver is experiencing a housing crisis and soaring prices — often driven up by speculation — with a rental vacancy of just 0.6 percent, estimates the city council.
Since 2013 Airbnb rental listings have doubled in number each year, reaching 4,400 entire units in 2015, according to the platform’s data.
Except in the case of hotels or bed and breakfasts, Vancouver bylaws prohibit rentals for less than 30 days.
The possibility that short-term rentals could be eating into the housing stock available to permanent residents adds another element to housing challenges facing the Canadian government, which promised to pass measures designed to curb soaring prices by fall.
Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson announced in June a new tax on vacant homes in the city, whose number has climbed to 11,000.
Robertson would also like to discourage unit owners from renting to tourists in the city for just a few days.
The city found that more than 5,000 units are rented out short-term, 85 percent of them on Airbnb.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in June that an influx of capital from Asia is partly to blame for double-digit housing price increases year after year in Toronto and Vancouver, but provided no supporting data to back up the remarks.
A Simon Fraser University study noted that homes in Vancouver valued at more than Can$1 million rose from 19 percent in 2006 to 91 percent this year.