South Coast housing crisis: Is Airbnb to blame?

House and rental prices continue to soar along the coast, and many are quick to blame the rise of short-term rental online marketplace app Airbnb.

In January 2022, there were 1226 short term rental accommodations in Eurobodalla according to Eurobodalla Shire Council, however this number has only minimally increased from 1118 in 2019.

Joint chief executives of Salt Ministries in Bomaderry, Peter and Megan Dover listed a number of factors contributing to the housing crisis, including the profitability to investors of listing their property on AirBnb.

"So many homes that people were renting have ended up on the rental markets or AirBnbs because there seems to be an increase of people from Sydney coming down," Ms Dover said. "So people ended up homeless because their normal rental has now become an Airbnb. It's quite complex and also connected to COVID.

"You don't blame people, because they're investment properties."

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Airbnb's Country Manager for Australia Susan Wheeldon told Australian Community Media (ACM) that housing affordability and availability was an extremely complex issue, with a range of contributing factors such as long-term population movements, supply growth and broader economic conditions - including the cost of borrowing.

"Short-term rentals [including, but not exclusive to Airbnb] generally comprise only a small percentage of the overall housing market," Ms Wheeldon said.

"Throughout the pandemic, large numbers of Australians have also permanently relocated from metropolitan areas to regional and coastal areas and purchased homes to live in. This also happened at a time largely characterised by both interstate and international border restrictions and reduced movements."

Airbnb conducted a study in February 2021 of Australian hosts who hosted a trip during 2020. A third of respondents said the primary reason they started hosting was to "make ends meet".

As living costs increase, Airbnb income becomes a more important financial stream. Almost 30 percent of hosts said money earned through Airbnb during 2021 allowed them or a household member to avoid working extra hours or taking on a second job.

"Many Hosts on Airbnb share their own home to help combat rising costs of living and meet mortgage repayments," Ms Wheeldon said.

However a search on Airbnb suggests this is not the majority.

Airbnb Australia was unable to provide data regarding available rentals in the Shoalhaven or Eurobodalla, or whether the number of properties available through the site in the shires was increasing. They also declined to comment on occupancy levels of properties listed through the site throughout the year.

ACM tried booking accommodation in the Eurobodalla and the Shoalhaven for a week - any week - in June 2022.

In the Eurobodalla, there were more than 300 properties - the maximum displayed in an Airbnb search - where the entire property was available to stay. How many more properties are available beyond the 300 displayed is unclear. There were just 27 options for a single room in an occupied house in the same period.

The story was similar in the Shoalhaven. There were more than 300 entire properties - again the maximum that can be displayed - available for rent for any week in June, compared to 134 private rooms in a property.

The data suggests the majority of Airbnb listings are entire properties rented out for visitors and tourists, and not single rooms in the family house.

Airbnb does play a fundamental role in tourism and providing jobs to the South Coast. Oxford Economics research commissioned by Airbnb found Airbnb supported almost 90,000 jobs in Australia in 2019 alone.

"Hosts help drive economic growth and job creation, with many local businesses relying on the valuable tourism dollars spent by Airbnb guests," Ms Wheeldon said.

The report also found rural travel had significantly increased globally, especially in Australia where regional bookings were 18 per cent of total bookings in winter 2019 and 42 per cent of total bookings in winter 2021. The closure of international travel increased this trend.

Mr and Mrs Dover proposed one solution was listing properties with Salt, rather than real-estate agents.

"Could you imagine if the community said 'hey, instead of us putting our house up with a real estate agent, how about we put it with Salt? They'd be getting the same amount of rent, all the same guarantees, while actually changing a homeless persons or families life, just because they have an investment property."

When asked what could be done in relation to empty short-term dwellings to help the housing crisis, Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips pointed to the piloting work of Salt.

"We need something like Salt in the interim until we get that growth in the affordable and social housing," she said.

"They actively go out and convince property owners to turn their properties into long term rentals."

However both Ms Phillips and Liberal candidate for Gilmore Andrew Constance said AirBnb was a state issue.

In 2021 the NSW Government changed the short term rental accommodation (STRA) legislation so regional council's were given the option to enforce a 180-days-per-yer cap on non-hosted (where the host does not live on site) STRA.

Both the Eurobodalla and the Shoalhaven chose not to adopt this cap.

A Eurobodalla Shire Council spokesperson said the council had no plans on putting any restrictions on short-term rental accommodation in Eurobodalla.

A Shoalhaven Shire Council spokesperson said holiday homes and short term holiday rentals had been a feature of Shoalhaven for a long period and were a key part of the City's important tourism economy.

Airbnb did not respond to questions by ACM regarding any possible solutions they have for the housing crisis, or the role they could play in these answers.