Real Estate News Exchange – Airbnb must play by rules when it comes to rentals

September 9, 2016
“We’ve discovered that there are a lot of issues around zoning, health and safety and a sense of community and neighbourhood,” said Thorben Wieditz, a researcher for UNITE HERE, Local 75 and the Fairbnb Coalition on Wednesday at the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. “It has an impact that affects people whether or not they use the service.” The biggest concern is with people renting out entire apartments or houses, and not just a bedroom while the owners still occupy the rest of it. This is compounded by owners who purchase multiple properties or condominium units to rent their places out through Airbnb or similar services such as VRBO, FlipKey, VacationRentals.com and Wimdu. “I don’t think there’s any problem with people renting out a spare room, but when you see that over 80 per cent of Airbnb’s revenue stream is based on entire homes and apartments and that over 60 per cent of the revenue stream is generated by multiple listing hosts that essentially run small businesses subletting these places, we have a problem with that,” said Wieditz….
Source: http://renx.ca/airbnb-must-play-rules-comes-rentals/