There is much anger in Ireland over the country’s ongoing housing crisis. The Dail put in place an eviction ban over the winter. It got them some good headlines for a while, but the ban had the usual effect of driving smaller landlords out of the market, making the crisis worse. The ban is due to expire on 31st March. This will result in many people being evicted simultaneously on 1st April. Reddit Ireland is outraged. Here is a thread titled “Disgraceful” about how many Airbnb properties are available compared to how few long term rental properties. In fact the comparison is false. As a commenter called “Th0rHere” says, “Airbnb shows listings even when booked (to make future bookings possible). Daft [a property website] shows only available places to rent right now, as your not going to advertise place to rent if it’s already being rented. These numbers are not comparable.”
Even so, it is true that an awful lot of Irish properties that used to be let to long term tenants are now given over to Airbnb. I have posted about the issue a couple of times. Why is this happening? Why would anyone choose the constant work and uncertainty of letting out their property as an Airbnb over the stability of having a long term tenant?
On that same “Disgraceful” thread, a Reddit Ireland commenter called “RestrepoDoc2” explained why:
If I was a property owner with an apartment or flat in a popular tourist area I’d have to weigh up the benefits of renting to someone on a long term rental compared to short term lets on Airbnb.
I can’t really come up with any benefits of a long term rental agreement other than less property management logistics ie. getting cleaners in, checking the property for damage or stolen items between guests and providing keys, codes etc.
The benefits of Airbnb to the property owner are nearly too abundant to outline in any real detail but just off the top of my head.
Security of your property, card details and passport details held by Airbnb, guest history, can meet them in person. Any antisocial behaviour in the property can be dealt with by local police as they can enter your property with your permission and make people leave (I assume).
You can rent it out as suits you, can stay in it when you want, store your property in a locked storage room there, let family or friends stay in it sometimes. You can do repair work or refurbishment when you want.
You don’t have to worry about if a tenant has job security, you don’t have to tiptoe around the subject of HAP or any disabilities a prospective tenant might declare to you at a viewing. You don’t have to consider arranging inspections of your property by RTB agents. You don’t need to pay for a professionally drawn up rental agreement, or drafted legal letters in case of non payment, damage to property, refusal to allow reasonable access for inspection, anti-social behaviour, notifications in writing of rent increases or end of tenancy etc. Then there’s the rent a mob crowds like CATU being legitimised by attention seeking opposition party TDs and local councillors. They will literally turn up to intimidate any property owner once a dispute is raised by a tenant whether they’re refusing to pay rent, squatting, changing the locks of your property etc.
There’s been several local councillors and a partially state funded organisation in Threshold literally advising people to break the law by refusing to move out of someone’s property even when given relevant notice and for permitted reasons. This is forcing property owners to seek a court order which could take another year etc. With the upcoming vote about extending the eviction ban and talk of further infringing on property owners rights. Realistically it may soon not even be possible to sell your property, to move a family member or yourself into the property, to carry out refurbishments on your own property.
Basically it would be madness to choose to provide a long term rental lease to somebody. Instead of fixing that mess of a situation caused by government intervention, they are trying to ban Airbnb or regulate it out of existence.
RestrepoDoc2’s comment got 3 upvotes, one of which was mine.
A comment from “Irish_drunkard” saying, “We banned Uber because it would effect our taxi business, why can’t we ban AirBNB?” got 985 upvotes.