Boston’s ban on listing investment properties as short term rentals will go into effect December 1 and the city’s housing chief expects a flood of properties to come to market.
Boston’s short term rental market is red-hot, but new regulation will put a brake to it. So far, only 465 applications have been approved by the city. The Boston Herald reports the numbers behind the current state of market:
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- 6,100 current Airbnb listings
- 1,094 total applications for mandatory licenses
- 495 licenses have been approved
- 465 applications were rejected
- 134 are still pending
- 5,006 properties haven’t registered with city ahead of the Dec. 1 deadline
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Of the 6,100 Airbnb listings, the company believes 3,000 of them are investment properties, reports Boston Herald.
“We’re hoping that more units coming on the market will increase the vacancy rate and units will continue to moderate,” Boston housing Chief Sheila Dillon told the Boston Herald. As in other major U.S. cities, Boston’s housing shortage has led to increased rents and home prices.
Boston’s civic engagement chief Jerome Smith also noted that short-term rental companies are buying up units in some of the new luxury buildings in the city. Venture-backed property management companies such as Vacasa and Sonders have been moving into urban cities and taking over blocks of apartments or entire buildings for short-term rentals.
Most of these short-term rental companies are filling the gap between Airbnb and hotels by offering accommodations that are more consistent than Airbnb stays and provide more space than hotel rooms. Often, they partner with developers as well as homeowners to source their rental properties and they work to ensure compliance with city ordinances.
