The holiday letting numbers that really matter
This opinion piece highlights a number of issues with the lack of short-term rental regulation in NSW. Safety, community and commercialisation all need to be considered by any new laws. But we only need look to other cities around the world grappling with the same issues.
What got me thinking though with this statistic quoted in the article: “Almost one in every three Airbnb properties (32 per cent) in the Sydney market is already currently full-time commercial accommodation.”
That’s not surprising, but worth noting that the proportion of Sydney bookings to these units is likely much higher than 32%, because the properties are available for more of the year and are better priced.
And the proportion of dollars booked (aka total host revenue) is higher again, because they tend to be whole properties rather than rooms.
The proportion of dollars booked is important because it’s directly tied to the revenue of Airbnb, Homeaway, Booking and other STR providers. It’s their dirty secret. They talk about the average revenue earned by a host or number of nights booked but this skews in their favour, because they have lots of part-time hosts with only a few bookings a year (in other words, it’s a long tail).
But what would really help policy makers is a breakdown of their dollars booked between commercial operations and part-timers. This would show how much activity goes to each type of listing, and the economic effects of both.
Don’t hold your breath. They’re still pushing the line that it’s mostly mum and dads renting occasionally. The massive underbelly of full-time businesses that run off these platforms is not something they want to talk about.
