> The solution to the "Airbnb problem" of rising home costs is less regulation, not more. Regulation around short term rentals and regulation around constructi

> The solution to the "Airbnb problem" of rising home costs is less regulation, not more. Regulation around short term rentals and regulation around construction and zoning are two very different things. I agree that every city can probably benefit from more progressive construction policy, but that doesn't mean that restricting short term rentals isn't also a good idea. It's nice to think that the free market combined with liberal policies will produce so much capacity that all problems around pricing (and by extension AirBnB) will be solved, but we haven't seen much evidence that this can occur in a timely enough manner to come anywhere close to meeting demand, which may also be increasing over that time. Here in San Francisco for example, we've seen a massive construction boom over the last few years, but it's having no effect on prices because even though thousands of new units are coming online, the pent up demand still vastly exceeds the new supply. Even assuming you could solve the problem with construction, the solution will come on a decade scale whereas AirBnB can entire change the face of a city's rental market in a few years, or less (take a Berlin for example). Popular cities would still need restrictions on AirBnBs to keep the problem in check until longer term increases in housing capacity can be put in place.