More Airbnbs than families on waiting lists

A news service claims that in many UK cities there are now more entire homes listed on Airbnb than there are homeless families in temporary accommodation.

National World says that there are enough Airbnbs listed in Bristol to house the 1,170 households in temporary accommodation, and enough listed in Edinburgh to house the 3,370 households there in temporary accommodation.

The data used by the news service comes from Inside Airbnb.

Greater Manchester was found to have 2,684 properties, equivalent to 62 per cent of households in temporary accommodation, while London had 27,360, equivalent to just under half of these homeless households.

Chris Bailey, national campaign manager at the Action on Empty Homes activist group, told National World that the presence of multiple short lets “raises rents, pushes house prices out of reach of those on average incomes and above all limits the availability of affordable homes to rent on a long-term basis; as more and more property is sucked into the short let or Airbnb market – making huge profits for investor owners but housing nobody at all”.

A consultation document published last month by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities proposes the requirement of planning consent for an existing home to start to be used as a short let.

It will also consider another option - whether to give owners flexibility to let their home for up to a specified number of nights in a calendar year without the need for planning permission.

Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the planning changes would be introduced through secondary legislation later in the year and would apply in England only.

Also last month, the Department for Culture Media and Sport launched a separate consultation on a new registration scheme for short lets.

The scheme aims to “build a picture of how many short-term lets there are and where they are located, to help understand the impact of short-term lets on communities.”

You can read the full National World article here.