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In Reykjavik "too many tourists" is very much a problem. Or more specifically, the ratio of tourists to available housing. Sure, there are solutions. There's a

In Reykjavik "too many tourists" is very much a problem. Or more specifically, the ratio of tourists to available housing. Sure, there are solutions. There's a huge housing bubble right now (which will collapse whenever tourism dries up), for instance. Maybe if it keeps on this way some legislation will be passed to get it under control. But both of those solutions are completely out of the hands of the people who actually can't afford to live in the city where they work.

danudey 8y ago
It's a huge problem in Vancouver, as well. There's a huge housing crisis here, and there's a lot of factors involved, but real estate speculation and short-term rentals are substantial contributors. There was a woman at a city council meeting a few years ago who lived in a building with around 10 units, and she said six of them were on AirBnB. When ever she checked, their (small) pool always had people in it she'd never seen before, and never would again. People buy places to live in and make a life in, and then half the building is party people. For what it's worth, this has always made us extremely wary of AirBnB, and we do a lot of research for cities we visit before we rent an AirBnB somewhere. In Montreal they're regulated, so we had no problem there. In Reykjavik, we rented from a woman who was staying at her mother's place to take care of her pets while she (her mother) was out of the country, so our stay wasn't depriving anyone of housing. Other places we go, where AirBnB isn't as well regulated, we're very particular and tend to go for hotels (e.g. Ottawa, Seattle) because we're very aware of how bad these kinds of systems can be for people.
- shados 8y ago
  > People buy places to live in and make a life in, and then half the building is party people This has to be repeated. There's no point in living without some level of quality of life. Having everyone trying to raise their family, do their school work, study, or just try to sleep, in what are essentially all becoming hotels, is just not something we should strive for. One could even argue you're going to end up in a world where success in life is tied to wealth, not because of all the reasons commonly associated with it, but just because one group can actually sleep at night and one can't.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
  Didn’t Vancouver recently pass a big tax on houses that were not someone’s primary residence? Is that helping?
Tiktaalik 8y ago
Yep. There are solutions, but it's tough due to demand being so elastic in comparison to housing. In cities such as Reykjavik and Vancouver, they could tax Airbnb and divert the funding to create more housing, but housing construction is a physical process that takes time. Meanwhile in the short term rents are spiking.
- meheleventyone 8y ago
  In Reykjavik they’ve imposed limits on how long you can let on AirBnB before you need to be licensed and for shared apartment complexes you need permission of your neighbors to run an AirBnB. The downside is that with high demand still from tourists and seemingly poor enforcement it’s still an issue. Anecdotally as a resident of downtown Reykjavik I know that a bunch of places around my house that did the AirBnB thing have stopped and returned to longer lets. Presumably because hotel capacity is reaching more of an equilibrium. Which could be a concern as there is a lot of development still not completed. On the positive side that could open a lot of spare housing capacity for local residents but at an obvious cost as the current housing bubble bursts.

danudey 8y ago

It's a huge problem in Vancouver, as well. There's a huge housing crisis here, and there's a lot of factors involved, but real estate speculation and short-term rentals are substantial contributors. There was a woman at a city council meeting a few years ago who lived in a building with around 10 units, and she said six of them were on AirBnB. When ever she checked, their (small) pool always had people in it she'd never seen before, and never would again. People buy places to live in and make a life in, and then half the building is party people. For what it's worth, this has always made us extremely wary of AirBnB, and we do a lot of research for cities we visit before we rent an AirBnB somewhere. In Montreal they're regulated, so we had no problem there. In Reykjavik, we rented from a woman who was staying at her mother's place to take care of her pets while she (her mother) was out of the country, so our stay wasn't depriving anyone of housing. Other places we go, where AirBnB isn't as well regulated, we're very particular and tend to go for hotels (e.g. Ottawa, Seattle) because we're very aware of how bad these kinds of systems can be for people.

shados 8y ago
> People buy places to live in and make a life in, and then half the building is party people This has to be repeated. There's no point in living without some level of quality of life. Having everyone trying to raise their family, do their school work, study, or just try to sleep, in what are essentially all becoming hotels, is just not something we should strive for. One could even argue you're going to end up in a world where success in life is tied to wealth, not because of all the reasons commonly associated with it, but just because one group can actually sleep at night and one can't.
SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
Didn’t Vancouver recently pass a big tax on houses that were not someone’s primary residence? Is that helping?

Tiktaalik 8y ago

Yep. There are solutions, but it's tough due to demand being so elastic in comparison to housing. In cities such as Reykjavik and Vancouver, they could tax Airbnb and divert the funding to create more housing, but housing construction is a physical process that takes time. Meanwhile in the short term rents are spiking.

meheleventyone 8y ago
In Reykjavik they’ve imposed limits on how long you can let on AirBnB before you need to be licensed and for shared apartment complexes you need permission of your neighbors to run an AirBnB. The downside is that with high demand still from tourists and seemingly poor enforcement it’s still an issue. Anecdotally as a resident of downtown Reykjavik I know that a bunch of places around my house that did the AirBnB thing have stopped and returned to longer lets. Presumably because hotel capacity is reaching more of an equilibrium. Which could be a concern as there is a lot of development still not completed. On the positive side that could open a lot of spare housing capacity for local residents but at an obvious cost as the current housing bubble bursts.