Landlords solely using AirBnB for lettings now require planning permission

4ensic15

daithi7 wrote: »

Loads in fairness: I.e.
Direct social housing builds and rapid builds
Reintroducing the first time buyer's grant
Allowing the tax credit to be used as part of the deposit
Increasing the rent a room allowance
Etc, etc etc

I wouldn't call that loads.
There are pathetically few social housing and rapid builds (which are anything but rapid to build) under way. Nowhere near enough to stop the problem getting worse.
First time buyers grant will do very little for supply. It is not going to get more house up or get them up any faster.
tax credit for deposit, likewise.
Rent a room allowance will put few if any extra rooms on the market. It is more likely that owners will take the opportunity to charge their house mates more.
All of this is scratching at the surface of the problem. In a scenario where 25,000 units are needed annually and output is around half that, these "measures" are pathetic.

sondagefaux

Baby01032012 wrote: »

Gatling wrote: »

Photos ,CCTV and likely witness statements all easy enough these days .
Add someone would obviously have to advertise the properties,quick search on the oul interwebs easy enough to find an actual listing

Unlikely CCTV in corridors, at hall door yes but they could be going to any apartment. Who's going to stand outside with a camera. Re: advertise - Airbnb adds do not give addresses, it shows point on a map, hard to disciper street never mind apartment/block.

Make a fake booking on Airbnb and ask a few questions about availability, precise location within block etc...

sondagefaux

4ensic15 wrote: »

Gatling wrote: »

Only takes a simple phone call no need for PI's at all

1. How is a phone call going to get the address?
What good is getting an address?
How does that mean DCC can stop it at that address?

You phone the person advertising the place to let and ask them for the address.. Which is useful so you can inform Dublin City Council that you suspect that the owner at that address is not living there and is renting it out full-time on Airbnb. DCC can investigate and, if your suspicions are correct, take planning enforcement action which could include requiring the property owner to apply for planning permission for change of use from residential to commercial. Obviously planning permission isn't guaranteed as objections can be lodged. Does that answer your questions?

imitation

Time for the silicon valley lads to move onto a new thing to "disrupt". People in Hotels, taxis, food delivery have all taken a knock from people looking to earn pokcet money on the side and multinationals skimming a healthy chunk off the top. Its all fantastic until you realise its another career type job thats been made redundant.

4ensic15

sondagefaux wrote: »

You phone the person advertising the place to let and ask them for the address.. Which is useful so you can inform Dublin City Council that you suspect that the owner at that address is not living there and is renting it out full-time on Airbnb. DCC can investigate and, if your suspicions are correct, take planning enforcement action which could include requiring the property owner to apply for planning permission for change of use from residential to commercial. Obviously planning permission isn't guaranteed as objections can be lodged. Does that answer your questions?

That is not how it works. Initial contact is made by e-mail and the owner must accept or reject. The owner will give a non existent address in the vicinity. I know one owner who always puts fake numbers on DAFT. He puts No 31 in a street with 30 houses. When someone wants to go there they will be met at a different location and escorted to the correct address.
DCC will not be in any hurry to react to attempted internet bookings. That is not evidence for a court case. DCC would want about 4 witness statements from neighbours, proof of who the owner is, CCTV footage of guests and evidence that the owner lives somewhere else.
DCC have to serve a notice on the current owner and them come back and see if he has complied. DCC does not have the interest or the resources to try and close down Airbnb s. If they are contacted about non-existent addresses they will give up even sooner.

Graham

It does look like DCC are going to try and bury their heads for as long as possible.

If I were betting, I'd be looking at the property management companies having the largest/fastest effect.

Graham

Graham wrote: »

It does look like DCC are going to try and bury their heads for as long as possible.

If I were betting, I'd be looking at the property management companies having the largest/fastest effect.

Yes, this decision would be a nightmare to enforce so that is why DCC are not enthusiastic - there are better uses for our tax euros. However this decision will act as an important backstop and support for management companies who have decided to limit short term lets in their properties.

beauf

Hotels also have a shortage

http://www.thejournal.ie/hotels-occupancy-dublin-2-3038232-Oct2016/

seamus

beauf wrote: »

This crisis has been going n on for years. They announced that only the other day.

Property takes years to build. There is no realistic way any government can snap their fingers and solve a housing shortage in a week, or even a year.

Even the so-called "rapid build" houses will take a year to finish the whole lot of them.

Houses are labour and time intensive, you can't just throw up big wooden boxes for people to live in. Well you can, but you'll be rebuilding them ten years later and dealing with all sorts of issues in the interim.

We're still 3-5 years away from any appreciable easing off of the housing shortage.

Graham

Deleted User wrote: »

However this decision will act as an important backstop and support for management companies who have decided to limit short term lets in their properties.

My thoughts exactly.

I wouldn't be surprised to see AirBnB take action either. In other jurisdictions they've had large scale purges of properties starting with commercial operators. If I remember correctly, New York is one example where they also make a register of properties/landlords available to the relevant authorities.

hytrogen

Graham wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised to see AirBnB take action either. In other jurisdictions they've had large scale purges of properties starting with commercial operators. If I remember correctly, New York is one example where they also make a register of properties/landlords available to the relevant authorities.

They're being 'evicted' from New York according to an article in the financial times yesterday, front page too. Love how the yanks sneeze & we get the flu-ish ideas

Graham

listermint wrote: »

Few Air BnBr's in here it seems......

Having their cake and eating it too.

You can't really blame the landlords for giving it a go, triple the income on a single property and neatly sidestepping the hassle of the Residential Tenancies Act.

Precisely why something needs to change.

hytrogen wrote: »

They're being 'evicted' from New York according to an article in the financial times yesterday, front page too. Love how the yanks sneeze & we get the flu-ish ideas

Thanks, I must have a read. I suspect regulatory issues are one of, if not the biggest hurdles facing AirBnB in the coming years.

mariaalice

The way it is being used is not in the spirit of airbandb original purpose, it is not going to stop someone using their spare bedroom for an airbandb it it intended to deter property investors using it as an unmanned hotel.

Graham

mariaalice wrote: »

The way it is being used is not in the spirit of airbandb original purpose

That's it in a nutshell.

It's gone from a 'sharing economy' product utilising underused spare rooms (very clever) to a large scale, market-distorting vacuum for residential accommodation.

beauf

seamus wrote: »

Property takes years to build. There is no realistic way any government can snap their fingers and solve a housing shortage in a week, or even a year.

Even the so-called "rapid build" houses will take a year to finish the whole lot of them.

Houses are labour and time intensive, you can't just throw up big wooden boxes for people to live in. Well you can, but you'll be rebuilding them ten years later and dealing with all sorts of issues in the interim.

We're still 3-5 years away from any appreciable easing off of the housing shortage.

This shortage has been going on years, if not decades. There has been an on going issue with the privatisation of social housing.

So they allow loads of building of tiny apartments that are completely unsuited. Etc.

seamus

beauf wrote: »

This shortage has been going on years, if not decades. There has been an on going issue with the privatisation of social housing.

So they allow loads of building of tiny apartments that are completely unsuited. Etc.

I do agree to a certain extent - in theory we should have plenty of housing "left over" from the boom. But we don't, for a variety of reasons such as inadequate planning to abandoned estates.

But this current shortage has been in existence for about 3 years. And even then it's only been quite obviously at a critical level for 18 months to 2 years.

And building output has been on the up since the start of 2013. We are now building more than twice as many properties as we were then.

But the majority of properties coming available right now, started the whole process 2-3 years ago - when demand was half what it is now. So in order to catch up with rising demand, there is a significant lag period. As demand continues to rise, output will too, but lags behind by a couple of years. Hence another ~3 years before we'll see any reckonable easing off in the shortage.

Claw Hammer

beauf wrote: »

This shortage has been going on years, if not decades. There has been an on going issue with the privatisation of social housing.

So they allow loads of building of tiny apartments that are completely unsuited. Etc.

If you look back on this forum you will see that rents were falling 5 years ago. There was no shortage of accommodation. When it was becoming clear that the slack was being taken up and a shortage was looming those who pointed this out were accused of crying wolf.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=79006148

There seems to be an utter and complete inertia about this issue. Simple steps to preserve supply are not being taken, nonsense solutions with modular housing are being pursued, money is being wasted on paying for hoyels that could be used for building.
It is a complete joke.
The question must be asked. Who benefits?

mariaalice

This is very ingenious! don't normally listen to Joe Duffy apparently some individual has been renting 30 short term properties over the summer( student accommodation in the winter ) and using them for an airbandb business. note he was renting the properties not the owner. Obviousness the whole thing has got out of hand a bit.

Claw Hammer

Purpose built student properties have planning for short term lettings, so there is no problem with that.

newacc2015

Graham wrote: »

That's it in a nutshell.

It's gone from a 'sharing economy' product utilising underused spare rooms (very clever) to a large scale, market-distorting vacuum for residential accommodation.

No one on this thread seems to have crunched the numbers. You would swear about 10% of Dublin is now Airbnb with the way people are going on.

There is about 1,500 full property Airbnbs in Dublin. There is about 250k housing units in DCC. Meaning about 0.5% of Dublin City housing units are currently full time Airbnbs, which is not market distorting when you look at the bigger picture

Lets reverse blaming landlords for lack of housing and blame DCC for a minute. How many housing units did DCC take out of industry in 2013 by blaming bedsits? Probably well into several thousand. A lot of these houses are now empty or the 8-12 units that they were in are now a single family home.

A lot of peoples issue with Airbnb is not that it is taking housing units out of the market, it is your typical Irish BS of people being spiteful about others making more money than them. People complaining about Airbnb in Dublin, have no issue using it on their holidays. But have a massive issue with a Dublin landlord making twice as much on an Airbnb versus a long term let

The bigger issue on hand is DCC not building enough social housing

L1011

Claw Hammer wrote: »

Purpose built student properties have planning for short term lettings, so there is no problem with that.

Huge amounts of de facto student accommodation in the private rental sector - generally rather run down and unable to attract 12 month tenants; but that'd also be unable to attract AirBnB regulars I guess.

Making it impossible to short-term let those during the summer might make some landlords more likely to put work in to improving the place and getting a 12 month tenant - but I imagine we're talking about a fraction of a a fraction of the market here. And the displaced students will still need somewhere else!

foggy_lad

newacc2015 wrote: »

No one on this thread seems to have crunched the numbers. You would swear about 10% of Dublin is now Airbnb with the way people are going on.

There is about 1,500 full property Airbnbs in Dublin. There is about 250k housing units in DCC. Meaning about 0.5% of Dublin City housing units are currently full time Airbnbs, which is not market distorting when you look at the bigger picture

Lets reverse blaming landlords for lack of housing and blame DCC for a minute. How many housing units did DCC take out of industry in 2013 by blaming bedsits? Probably well into several thousand. A lot of these houses are now empty or the 8-12 units that they were in are now a single family home.

A lot of peoples issue with Airbnb is not that it is taking housing units out of the market, it is your typical Irish BS of people being spiteful about others making more money than them. People complaining about Airbnb in Dublin, have no issue using it on their holidays. But have a massive issue with a Dublin landlord making twice as much on an Airbnb versus a long term let

The bigger issue on hand is DCC not building enough social housing

What % of rental accommodation is taken up by Airbnb? The total number of houses in Dublin means nothing in this argument as many of those are owned and lived in by the owners. Of the total number of rental accommodation excluding council housing do we know what % is taken up by Airbnb?

mariaalice

Claw Hammer wrote: »

Purpose built student properties have planning for short term lettings, so there is no problem with that.

But he wasn't informing the landlord he was renting from that was the problem and it was not purposes built student accommodation.

Graham

newacc2015 wrote: »

There is about 1,500 full property Airbnbs in Dublin. There is about 250k housing units in DCC. Meaning about 0.5% of Dublin City housing units are currently full time Airbnbs, which is not market distorting when you look at the bigger picture

Most of those properties are centred in/around the central business districts where the supply is most constrained and the demand for long-term accommodation is highest.

Lets say an average value of €350,000 per property you're suggesting the rapid removal of €525,000,000 worth of property from a relatively small geographic area is not market distorting?

Graham

foggy_lad wrote: »

What % of rental accommodation is taken up by Airbnb? The total number of houses in Dublin means nothing in this argument as many of those are owned and lived in by the owners. Of the total number of rental accommodation excluding council housing do we know what % is taken up by Airbnb?

IIRC the figures for one development at Spencer Dock were 100 apartments out of a total 600 units. Now obviously that won't apply to all developments but it's probably safe to assume similar splits across other developments in and around the IFSC/Temple Bar.

gaffer91

newacc2015 wrote: »

No one on this thread seems to have crunched the numbers. You would swear about 10% of Dublin is now Airbnb with the way people are going on.

There is about 1,500 full property Airbnbs in Dublin. There is about 250k housing units in DCC. Meaning about 0.5% of Dublin City housing units are currently full time Airbnbs, which is not market distorting when you look at the bigger picture

Lets reverse blaming landlords for lack of housing and blame DCC for a minute. How many housing units did DCC take out of industry in 2013 by blaming bedsits? Probably well into several thousand. A lot of these houses are now empty or the 8-12 units that they were in are now a single family home.

A lot of peoples issue with Airbnb is not that it is taking housing units out of the market, it is your typical Irish BS of people being spiteful about others making more money than them. People complaining about Airbnb in Dublin, have no issue using it on their holidays. But have a massive issue with a Dublin landlord making twice as much on an Airbnb versus a long term let

The bigger issue on hand is DCC not building enough social housing

There are actually 2827 unoccupied dwellings on Airbnb in Dublin, not 1500. See here.

Airbnb is removing a huge proportion of properties that would otherwise be available to private renters. This impact on supply is having a massive impact, I don't know how anyone could deny this. Restricting Airbnb rentals would also increase the rental stock in Dublin very quickly, as opposed to constructing new houses/apartments, which also must be done, but the impact of which would take years to be noticed.

On top of this Airbnb turns residential areas into tourist zones. Many Airbnb hosts are not paying tax as well. The overall impact of Airbnb is very negative.

Government should legislate against short term holiday letting and absolutely hammer landlords who lease unoccupied apartments like this with rates, taxes etc to make sure this is no longer profitable.

Graham

gaffer91 wrote: »

There are actually 2827 unoccupied dwellings on Airbnb in Dublin, not 1500. See here.

Thanks, couldn't remember the name of that site.

I'll up my previous estimate to somewhere in the region of a billion euro.

€1,000,000,000 worth of property removed from the residential accommodation market in Dublin alone.

newacc2015

Graham wrote: »

Most of those properties are centred in/around the central business districts where the supply is most constrained and the demand for long-term accommodation is highest.

Lets say an average value of €350,000 per property you're suggesting the rapid removal of €525,000,000 worth of property from a relatively small geographic area is not market distorting?

Where did you get a figure of €350k from? You literally pulled it from thin air. The value of them is irrelevant too. How much property is currently owned in Dublin City by dodgy funds not paying a cent in tax? Billions, probably tens of billions. There are very few large apartments on airbnb in Dublin. They are mainly ones that sleep 2-4 people. So a figure of €350k average is absurd.

1% of the housing stock of DCC is now a private Airbnb. You are seriously going to tell me that is market distorting amount?

There was 5,307 bedsits according to the census in 2011. Most of them are in Dublin and within the canals. DCC got rid as possibly twice as many housing units as Airbnb. Yet not one is concerned about that or how a lot of the NCR and other parts of Dublin 1,6,7 & 9 are former bedsits sitting empty.

http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/temp/201610211849262526426CDD44.htm

I hope everyone that is outraged with Airbnbs are as concerned with DCC sitting on empty sites for nearly 10 years and massive vulture funds makings hundreds of million in profit from rental in Dublin without paying a cent in tax. But everyone prefers to blame the small private landlord

gaffer91

newacc2015 wrote: »

Where did you get a figure of €350k from? You literally pulled it from thin air. The value of them is irrelevant too. How much property is currently owned in Dublin City by dodgy funds not paying a cent in tax? Billions, probably tens of billions. There are very few large apartments on airbnb in Dublin. They are mainly ones that sleep 2-4 people. So a figure of €350k average is absurd.

1% of the housing stock of DCC is now a private Airbnb. You are seriously going to tell me that is market distorting amount?

There was 5,307 bedsits according to the census in 2011. Most of them are in Dublin and within the canals. DCC got rid as possibly twice as many housing units as Airbnb. Yet not one is concerned about that or how a lot of the NCR and other parts of Dublin 1,6,7 & 9 are former bedsits sitting empty.

http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/temp/201610211849262526426CDD44.htm

I hope everyone that is outraged with Airbnbs are as concerned with DCC sitting on empty sites for nearly 10 years and massive vulture funds makings hundreds of million in profit from rental in Dublin without paying a cent in tax. But everyone prefers to blame the small private landlord

It's not the percentage of the overall housing stock that is an issue- this includes family homes which are not going to be sold for decades, social housing etc. It's what proportion of what would otherwise be private rented accommodation that is instead being leased on Airbnb. I would wager this is significantly higher. And yes, it is distorting the market.

Your points about Vulture funds (not sure where this came from) and bedsits are irrelevant. People can argue for or against these things, but they have no impact on whether banning Airbnb short term leasing would in and of itself be a good thing- the answer to that is a resounding yes. New York has just banned advertising short term leases today. This is fantastic and will hopefully be emulated worldwide.

Graham

newacc2015 wrote: »

Where did you get a figure of €350k from? You literally pulled it from thin air. The value of them is irrelevant too.

Well yes actually, I can confirm i pulled the figure out of thin air. I bet you it's not too far out though. I suppose I could have used the was it €400,000 valuation was it that was put on the popular airbnb rental in temple bar.

The rest of your response was a bit too ranty and not really relevant so I'll skip that bit.