back to article Get the Canuck out: Vancouver vows Airbnb, Expedia crackdown

The city of Vancouver, Canada, is pushing a set of reforms to hit back against a housing shortage it blames in part on Airbnb and Expedia. The Pacific coast city said it plans to require home and apartment building owners who rent out their residences on short-term rental websites – like Airbnb and Expedia – to cough up an …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guess the checks...

    ...from the hotel lobby must have cleared.

    1. Sanctimonious Prick
      Happy

      Re: Guess the checks...

      No, no. They're just putting it out there, in the hope of getting a counter offer.

  2. whoseyourdaddy

    Sorry, but you possess advanced levels of stupid to defend AirBNB in Vancouver BC with the highest cost of living in all of North America.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      But last year it was all the fault of Chinese investors and the solution was (surprise) an extra tax on foreign buyers.

      This year it's AirBnb

      Next year we will be blaming the .....

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vancouver

    Home of the scary-as-shit Canada Geese!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh what we don't talk about.

    'Investors' were mentioned. West coast Canada? Now where would those investors be coming from? But we don't want to stop those passport-by-investment programs, do we. No, we'll take aim at the locals, the local investors. They're the problem, right?

    1. whoseyourdaddy

      Re: Oh what we don't talk about.

      Rent out a guest bedroom or a sofa, I can support that. You meet nice people.

      Since it isn't your primary residence, It's these investors that aggravate the housing shortage, bring rowdy strangers into my neighborhood with random sleep habits that ruin AirBNB for everyone.

      Listing my couch on AirBNB will cause me to be evicted from my apartment complex.

      I'm ok with that after I spend a year living next to college students from New Jersey.

    2. skeptical i

      Re: Oh what we don't talk about.

      Hmm. It sounds -- http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/hedge-city-vancouver-chinese-foreign-capital/ -- like part of the problem is that many of these "investment" McMansions sit empty for most of the year with the owners only vacationing in them occasionally. Perhaps if some of these "investors" divvied up their McMansions for by-the-room short-term rentals, that might take pressure off lower- end housing that could revert to apartments for the "regular" rental market.

      1. ratfox

        Re: Oh what we don't talk about.

        Yeah, contrary to San Francisco, the problem is that a lot of Vancouver's homes are empty. They just exist as speculative investment, and as a way to use their money out of China.

  5. Pen-y-gors

    Why holiday homes?

    I can understand the bit about the business licence, and the cost shouldn't deter anyone.

    But why ban renting out holiday homes? The biggest problem with holiday homes (apart from when they push up prices for locals, and reduce the pool of available housing) is when they are only used by the owners for a few weeks a year. Renting it out commercially for another few months brings visitors and their wallets into a community. Usually a local person will be employed to clean and manage the property. Local shops and restaurants will get business. Having a suitably small proportion of holiday rental properties can be a positive bonus, particularly for rural communities. Ideally holiday rental businesses should be owned by locals as well, so the rental income stays local, but so long as they pay local taxes then a few absentee landlords isn't a serious problem. Around here the problem gets serious when some rich bugger from the Smoke buys a place for what is, to them, peanuts, (but is quite a few times salary for a local worker) and then turns up for a couple of weekends a year with the back of the 4x4 full of food from their local Waitrose, and then studiously ignore all the local shops and pubs. Those we can do without.

    I appreciate the situation in Vancouver may be different - but do many people have holiday homes in a city?

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Why holiday homes?

      The problem is, those that would run the local shops, clean the holiday home etc. can't find anywhere to live at the moment, according to the report.

      If there was a surplus of accommodation, this wouldn't be a problem, but as there isn't enough housing for local residents as it is, they are trying to find ways to better balance the situation. This is an issue in many major cities, where there isn't enough accommodation and / or it is too expensive, so that the people who actually work in the city can't afford to live there.

      Me? You couldn't pay me enough to live in a big city.

      Whether it is a good idea and whether it will work is another matter.

  6. lglethal Silver badge
    Go

    Having a similar problem where I live at the moment...

    Where I am living at the moment, renting is not such a huge problem. However, buying a house or flat is almost impossible. The main reason seems to be Investment companies buying up all the property, devloping it, and then renting it out and never selling it on. Why would they? It's a continual source of income.

    Personally, I would like to see residential property not being able to be held for more than 5 years by a Company. Force them to sell it on. Everyone beneifts then. And in the Long term, higher home owning rates lead to lower retirement costs for the government. Still I'm not holding my breath.

    It would also have an effect on foreign Investors buying everything up. Most of them do so through off-shore shell companies, in order to hide who actually owns the property (and avoid being seen moving their money off-shore). Force them to show who actually owns the property and large amounts of the more dubious end of the spectrum would disappear pretty quickly...

    1. whoseyourdaddy

      Re: Having a similar problem where I live at the moment...

      I don't study up on such things. But, does the UK have a similar problem?

      People keep passing their home down to their descendents and you have a perpetual inventory shortage leading to stacking people up in hi-rises that aren't exactly fireproof.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Having a similar problem where I live at the moment...

        "does the UK have a similar problem?"

        The main problem in the UK is the price of property in relation to wages. Over the last few decades property prices have increased much more quickly than wages. This has happened everywhere, not just in big cities. There's a country-wide shortage of affordable housing.

        I haven't seen much of AirBnB here, but in the last place I lived, lots of housing was bought up by landlords to rent to students at the local university. I had to move out after the place next door was sold and subsequently rented out to a group of insomniac sociopaths (not all students are antisocial, but these ones were something special). I sympathise with anyone living next to an AirBnB party pad.

        Regarding the passing down of property to descendents, that doesn't happen as often as you might think. High care home fees and taxes often mean that the property has to be sold. The reality for many young people in the UK now is that they will never be able to own a home.

  7. DanceMan

    Vancouver has a serious housing problem, both in cost and availability. Land is somewhat limited, by the sea on the west, mountains north, the border south. Housing being built is primarily expensive condos beyond the reach of the young, and a significant amount of that has been bought by foreign buyers as investment and sits empty. The now-former right wing provincial gov't brought in an easily got around foreign buyer tax of 15% that had a momentary effect. This is another attempt to deal with the situation.

    And the situation is bad. Young professionals have been moving away, because of the cost of housing.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      This is actually a problem in many big cities world wide and is caused by speculators.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still have not learned that taxes is not the answer...

    The problem in British Columbia is that the tenancy laws are heavily biased against the landlord. So if you are a landlord it's a no brainer that you are going to opt for the easier and safer AirBnB option.

    Instead of futile taxes, the BC government should look to making tenancy laws fairer so landlords don't want to look for other revenue options beyond long term rentals.

    That solves the problem for everyone.

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