Ottawa could help address housing crisis by tackling Airbnb problem
Posted April 9, 2019 9:56 pm.
OTTAWA (NEWS 1310) – Some full Ottawa homes being run as “ghost hotels” on Airbnb are hurting the city’s vacancy rate, which sits at just 1.6 per cent.
Fairbnb is a coalition which has been studying issues caused by people who buy property just to rent it out, hotel-style, across Canada, and released a report on Ottawa on Tuesday.
There are about 2,830 Airbnb listings in the capital, and Fairbnb said nearly half of those are controlled by 37 per cent of Airbnb’s local hosts. One of the city’s top hosts has turned 76 homes into so-called “ghost hotels,” meaning the city doesn’t get any revenue for the business.
Thorben Wieditz with Fairbnb explained that this is happening because people know they can make a lot of money by circumventing the rules.
“Taxes, property taxes, landlord tenant laws, all these kinds of things,” explained Wieditz. “So if you circumvent these existing rules and regulations, there’s a lot of money in your pocket at the end of the day. And I think people are catching on to that.”