The complexities of the short-term rental phenomenon are worth debating and in April a public meeting, hosted jointly by Noosa Shire residents’ groups NSRRA and CARA, proved that, just as impacts are various, so too no one solution will fix the obvious anomalies.
That it is a hot topic was shown by more than 200 people turning up to hear Mayor Tony Wellington, Noosa’s new MP Sandy Bolton, and speakers from United Synergies and Tourism Noosa as well as an Airbnb host talk about the evolving changes to house letting and the disruptive effects these can have on communities.
The new business models of the of the short-term rental industry provide opportunities for homeowners who can see some extra income coming their way as they utilise spare rooms and by rental entrepreneurs who buy houses for permanent short-term rental rather than putting these properties on the traditional rental market.
Those losing out are not just people looking for affordable housing, but property rights managers who see once lucrative businesses upset by central booking agencies.
Mayor Wellington talked to a very interesting PowerPoint presentation with charts and tables explaining what was happening in Noosa and elsewhere. The mayor says there are around 3,000 properties in the shire used for short-term lets. These range from single rooms let by empty nesters to whole houses that are short-term rented on a permanent basis. Council research showed that 40% of houses in the prestigious Witta Circle, for example, were in this latter category.
MP Sandy Bolton touched on the issue of those displaced by pressures on the total housing stock, but admitted that she did not have the hard facts on local disruption.
Christopher John, from United Synergies said it was difficult to find low-cost housing for vulnerable people to rent and that most of those people were young.
Elizabeth Reynolds from Tourism Noosa defended her group’s marketing strategies, saying it has been years since it promoted Noosa to the day-tripper market, instead going for “high value” visitors from Sydney, Melbourne and overseas. Her argument is that these people often don’t bring a car, stay within walking distance of attractions and restaurants, and their bigger spend puts more dollars into the community for less deleterious effects on local amenity.
It was most interesting was hearing from Adrienne Penny, a Sunshine Beach resident, and experienced Airbnb operator, who lives in her home and rents out a part of it to visitors. These are generally people she enjoys meeting and the income supplements her part-time wage. She also offers her home midweek free as respite accommodation to carers of sick people.
Hers is one of about 150 properties on which Noosa Council has placed a tourism levy on. She considers $1,600 per annum a bit steep as it is the same rate paid by someone in her suburb renting a whole house.
A long Q&A session allowed attendees to ask questions, vent their concerns, and learn from both the panel and each other. Questions included: how to protect those with property management rights; where is the tourism levy spent; the impacts of so-called party houses; zoning for de-facto tourism operations in residential zones and their compliance with accommodation safety, infrastructure and occupant capacity regulations; the use of the tourism levy to fund infrastructure, not just tourism promotion; and how to identify short-term rental properties and their owners when names and addresses are not used on accommodation websites.
Since the legislation needed to address these problems must come from the state government, it’s fortunate that Mayor Wellington, who put a motion to last year’s LGAQ Annual Conference calling for a state government reference group to be established on short-term rentals, has been appointed to this new board as one of just two Queensland councils represented.
He is hoping that new legislation will give local government more powers to regulate an industry that has many anomalies. He was quick to point out that council had no intention of banning short-term rental agencies, rather making things equitable for all concerned.
Another option would be to put Tourism Levy funds towards a public housing trust fund to ensure that the stock of affordable housing is not diminished by the short-term rental market.
If you ask me “airbnb disruption is a good thing”. If we look at the entire travel industry the landscape is dominated by 2 only players (Expedia and Booking) so a 3rd player can only help some healthy competition
Disruption is here to stay, whether or not it’s a good thing, so the question is now about whether, how, and how much we regulate short term stays. AirBNB is just one of many internet based accommodation companies. You might be interested to know that Booking.com (based in Holland) has an aggressive campaign to claw back custom from platforms like AirBNB – they are touting for business by suggesting to clients using their site that while they’re away they should also let out their empty home on Booking.com.