While sharing economy tools like Airbnb were ostensibly designed to help people rent out a room or their homes on a short-term basis, today the vast majority of rentals listed on Airbnb and other short-stay platforms are entire properties, and many are run as holiday rentals for the majority of the year. As more properties are exclusively offered as holiday rentals, the number of long-term rental properties decreases, which in turn pushes rents up.
In popular holiday destinations in regional Victoria, rents are at record levels while the number of available rental properties has plummeted. And in the city, too many large apartment buildings have effectively turned into de facto hotels, reducing amenity and liveability for permanent residents.
While other states and cities around the world have introduced restrictions on the short-stay sector, including through day caps or increased council rates, in Victoria we have virtually no regulation of the industry.
The Greens' PLAN pusheS for tougher regulation on the short-stay industry by introducing:
- A cap on how many nights a year you can rent out a property as a short-stay, of 90 days a year
- New rules to allow owners corporations to regulate short-stays for properties that are not a host’s principal residence in their building
- A new mandatory public register of short stay operators