TzarKazm t1_j5ycnm4 wrote on January 26, 2023 at 12:31 PM

Reply to comment by brick1972 in WHY ARE HOUSES SO EXPENSIVE by mommy2boy

I suspect that people building up AirB&B empires has a lot to do with it. There are people in my town with a dozen houses for rent. I think it's more damaging than most people realize.

brick1972 t1_j5ydh7t wrote on January 26, 2023 at 12:39 PM

Yeah last year I was buzzed by a recruiter about a job in Bend OR. I thought it might be a nice 2-3 year change to go live out there. Then I saw that unless I wanted to live in a trailer park 10 miles out of town I'd need to make about 10% more than my Boston salary to stay even, nevermind the lower salary they were offering. How is it that everyone in a smallish mountain town can afford $800k condos. Then go to VRBO and Airbnb and see about 2000 listings...oh

cowperthwaite t1_j647z3z wrote on January 27, 2023 at 4:29 PM

When I've been doing stories on short-term rentals, all the data points to them being highly concentrated in the coastal towns (Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth) and very few everywhere else, especially per capita.

Sub required:

https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/12/12/which-ri-towns-are-regulating-short-term-rentals-like-airbnb/69709637007/

State lookup tool, need to do it by town:

https://elicensing.ri.gov/Lookup/OnlineReportExecute.aspx?queryIdnt=1298

Example: Warwick has 47 current listings but AirDNA, a company that tracks listings, puts it closer to 73.

But Warwick's population is 83k, with 27k single-family homes, 2.4k units in two-family, 1.9k in three familys and 5.5k in apartment complexes.

Source: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22416492-part_3_livable_neighborhoods#document/p6/a2149023

TzarKazm t1_j64aodn wrote on January 27, 2023 at 4:46 PM

Interesting, thanks for the data and links.

Bristol has 96 official listing so probably has more in reality. It has a population of 22.5k people. Assuming the average AirB&B would house 2.5 people it's about 1% of Bristols housing. I'm not sure that would drop house prices much, but it is a significant amount of housing.

cowperthwaite t1_j64jmyj wrote on January 27, 2023 at 5:41 PM

I think a better stat is comparing the number of listings to the amount of Bristol's residential units (usually the census)

That being said, when I looked it up on the census quick facts, it just gave me "X," so to find the numbers requires digging a couple layers deeper.