Airbnb’s ‘community compact’ addresses housing shortages

Mike Nemeth

10 years ago

In cities without enough long-term housing, Airbnb doesn’t want its business model to exacerbate the problem.

That’s the gist of a blog post Wednesday from the home-sharing giant. In the post, Airbnb vows to work with cities reporting a shortage of long-term rental housing yet lots of Airbnb listings. The post also announces Airbnb’s community compact.

“In these cities, we will work with our community to prevent short-term rentals from impacting the availability of long-term rental housing by ensuring hosts agree to a policy of listing only permanent homes on a short-term basis,” says the compact, which also promises greater economic transparency. “We will also continue to work with cities that have established home sharing policies as they evaluate these matters.”

Some argue that short-term rental websites like Airbnb exacerbate housing shortages because properties that would otherwise enter the rental market serve instead as makeshift hotels for weekend getaways. Limiting vacation listings to homes that are occupied full-time is one way for Airbnb to counter that argument.

The blog post goes on to say: “When we started Airbnb, we couldn’t have anticipated all the ways hosts would use our platform. We are proud of almost all of the activity that happens on our platform every day. But it’s become clear that we need to clarify what we will and will not tolerate in our community.”