4 ms·

While Airbnb is not the sole reason, it definitely is one of the factors if not a major factor for the steep rents here in Toronto. Just to give you an example

While Airbnb is not the sole reason, it definitely is one of the factors if not a major factor for the steep rents here in Toronto. Just to give you an example, when i moved in my current condo back in 2017 my rent was $1700/month. 2 years in and my landlord wants to suddenly "move back in" and now the rental price for similar units are around $2200/month. I find it hilarious top brass of Y Combinator talk about things like UBI and rest and meanwhile Airbnb actively tries to screw over the locals when it comes to renting a place and won't even assist local government in enforcing the rules.

l4yao 8y ago
I find this argument a lot whenever Airbnb is mentioned. Do you have a source available? Rent has increased significantly in Toronto recently. How do you know Airbnb is a significant factor?
- parthdesai 8y ago
  Here, according this[0] report Toronto has around 6200 entire units as airbnb units. That's at the very least 6200 less rental units in the market. And you know very well how supply and demand works. Anecdotal, but the couple in my neighbouring unit recently bought a condo and moved out. Guess what happened to that unit. It's a full time airbnb unit now. My floor has 12 units, and out of it 3 are full time airbnb units. And this is just 1 floor out of ~45 floors. And mind you, I still haven't started to list all the problems that airbnb tenants bring to the building. [0] http://fairbnb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Final_Fairbnb-Update-Report_Jan_9_2019.pdf http://fairbnb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Final_Fairbnb-U... Yes i know fairbnb is backed by a hotel lobby but that doesn't mean the reports are inaccurate.
  - bloomca 8y ago
    > I still haven't started to list all the problems that airbnb tenants bring to the building. It might be crazy, yeah. I guess buildings receive "abuse" in the same way as rental cars get more abuse, except that here regular tenants suffer.
  - l4yao 8y ago
    I think it's reasonable to assume Airbnb reduces supply. I don't see how you can conclude the 30% rent increase you experienced was largely driven by Airbnb. Lets say anyone renting out their unit for less than half a year wouldn't have put the unit on the rental market anyways. If you download and dive into the data, you'll see that there are ~9550 "Entire home/apt" listings, of which 5992 are available for less than half the year, leaving only 3558 units. In a city the size of Toronto, that seems negligible. Data: http://data.insideairbnb.com/canada/on/toronto/2019-03-07/visualisations/listings.csv http://data.insideairbnb.com/canada/on/toronto/2019-03-07/vi... Even if we took Fairbnb's number at face value, it still seems small relative to Toronto's total number of rental units. Here is a report published by McGill's School of Urban Planning, commissioned by the Hotel Trades Council, that found Airbnb responsible for a 1.3% rent increase over a 3 year period in New York: https://mcgill.ca/newsroom/files/newsroom/channels/attach/airbnb-report.pdf https://mcgill.ca/newsroom/files/newsroom/channels/attach/ai...
    - parthdesai 8y ago
      First of all, appreciate the level headed discussion and some very sound points that you bring. I dug through insideairbnb more and it's actually 12,374 (65%) units that are listed as entire unit in Toronto. That absolutely is a very significant amount of units. Only about 7k of the listings are either shared room/private room. Data: http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/?neighbourhood=&filterEntireHomes=false&filterHighlyAvailable=false&filterRecentReviews=false&filterMultiListings=false http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/?neighbourhood=&filterEntire... > Lets say anyone renting out their unit for less than half a year wouldn't have put the unit on the rental market anyways See, that's a valid point though in Canada it is difficult to get a mortgage and there are people now buying a second unit to treat as an airbnb property and generate income. Chances are that if the unit is sitting idle for > 90 days and < 180 days, people might be forced to sell it. Sure not everyone but there will be units that will come to the market. You say it's negligible but you have to remember that we have one of the lowest vacancy rates. source: https://dailyhive.com/toronto/vacancy-rate-toronto-ontario-cmhc-rental-report-2018 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/vacancy-rate-toronto-ontario-c... So forget about affordable rentals, there even is a shortage of just units in the market over here. Also, just go on r/toronto and search for Airbnb and you'll see an overwhelming majority of people echoing the issues that i've been saying.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    >Anecdotal You could have just summarized your entire post up with just that one word. You have no conclusive proof that airbnb is the sole cause of the rent increases you have observed.
    - parthdesai 8y ago
      And i never said airbnb is the sole reason. Maybe learn to comprehend the actual point first?
  - nradov 8y ago
    Why doesn't the HOA just block short term rentals?

l4yao 8y ago

I find this argument a lot whenever Airbnb is mentioned. Do you have a source available? Rent has increased significantly in Toronto recently. How do you know Airbnb is a significant factor?

parthdesai 8y ago
Here, according this[0] report Toronto has around 6200 entire units as airbnb units. That's at the very least 6200 less rental units in the market. And you know very well how supply and demand works. Anecdotal, but the couple in my neighbouring unit recently bought a condo and moved out. Guess what happened to that unit. It's a full time airbnb unit now. My floor has 12 units, and out of it 3 are full time airbnb units. And this is just 1 floor out of ~45 floors. And mind you, I still haven't started to list all the problems that airbnb tenants bring to the building. [0] http://fairbnb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Final_Fairbnb-Update-Report_Jan_9_2019.pdf http://fairbnb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Final_Fairbnb-U... Yes i know fairbnb is backed by a hotel lobby but that doesn't mean the reports are inaccurate.
- bloomca 8y ago
  > I still haven't started to list all the problems that airbnb tenants bring to the building. It might be crazy, yeah. I guess buildings receive "abuse" in the same way as rental cars get more abuse, except that here regular tenants suffer.
- l4yao 8y ago
  I think it's reasonable to assume Airbnb reduces supply. I don't see how you can conclude the 30% rent increase you experienced was largely driven by Airbnb. Lets say anyone renting out their unit for less than half a year wouldn't have put the unit on the rental market anyways. If you download and dive into the data, you'll see that there are ~9550 "Entire home/apt" listings, of which 5992 are available for less than half the year, leaving only 3558 units. In a city the size of Toronto, that seems negligible. Data: http://data.insideairbnb.com/canada/on/toronto/2019-03-07/visualisations/listings.csv http://data.insideairbnb.com/canada/on/toronto/2019-03-07/vi... Even if we took Fairbnb's number at face value, it still seems small relative to Toronto's total number of rental units. Here is a report published by McGill's School of Urban Planning, commissioned by the Hotel Trades Council, that found Airbnb responsible for a 1.3% rent increase over a 3 year period in New York: https://mcgill.ca/newsroom/files/newsroom/channels/attach/airbnb-report.pdf https://mcgill.ca/newsroom/files/newsroom/channels/attach/ai...
  - parthdesai 8y ago
    First of all, appreciate the level headed discussion and some very sound points that you bring. I dug through insideairbnb more and it's actually 12,374 (65%) units that are listed as entire unit in Toronto. That absolutely is a very significant amount of units. Only about 7k of the listings are either shared room/private room. Data: http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/?neighbourhood=&filterEntireHomes=false&filterHighlyAvailable=false&filterRecentReviews=false&filterMultiListings=false http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/?neighbourhood=&filterEntire... > Lets say anyone renting out their unit for less than half a year wouldn't have put the unit on the rental market anyways See, that's a valid point though in Canada it is difficult to get a mortgage and there are people now buying a second unit to treat as an airbnb property and generate income. Chances are that if the unit is sitting idle for > 90 days and < 180 days, people might be forced to sell it. Sure not everyone but there will be units that will come to the market. You say it's negligible but you have to remember that we have one of the lowest vacancy rates. source: https://dailyhive.com/toronto/vacancy-rate-toronto-ontario-cmhc-rental-report-2018 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/vacancy-rate-toronto-ontario-c... So forget about affordable rentals, there even is a shortage of just units in the market over here. Also, just go on r/toronto and search for Airbnb and you'll see an overwhelming majority of people echoing the issues that i've been saying.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  >Anecdotal You could have just summarized your entire post up with just that one word. You have no conclusive proof that airbnb is the sole cause of the rent increases you have observed.
  - parthdesai 8y ago
    And i never said airbnb is the sole reason. Maybe learn to comprehend the actual point first?
- nradov 8y ago
  Why doesn't the HOA just block short term rentals?