Earlier this month, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) released a report arguing that short-term letting (STL) portals like Airbnb account for one in seven rental properties in Sydney’s and Melbourne’s inner-city and beachside suburbs.
This report featured the below chart showing that there were just over 20,000 Airbnb listings in Sydney and just under 20,000 listings in Melbourne:
Now, Statista has released the below chart estimating the cumulative rentals available through ‘Airbnb’ and ‘HomeAway’ in Australia from 2014 to 2018:
As you can see, Statista’s estimate of homes gobbled-up through STL is more than four times as large in Sydney and more than three times as large in Melbourne.
Whatever the case, short-term rentals like Airbnb are having a pervasive impact in Sydney and Melbourne. And the biggest losers are the apartment dwellers effected by unruly behaviour, as well as younger and vulnerable residents unable to afford a home and stuck in the increasingly insecure rental market.
