Op-Ed: Unfettered STRA has become big business

Barely a week seems to go by now without short-term rental accommodation companies like Airbnb being in the news.

And these days, as many of you will have noticed, very little of it is complimentary.

In the last few weeks alone, we heard of neighbours along a Brisbane riverfront who have put up with years of alleged drunken nude frolics and strippers at a house rented out on Airbnb for $994 a night.

Residents in Norman Park told The Courier Mail they “have had a gutful” of bucks’ parties, hens’ nights and footy trips complete with strippers with nipple tassels and nude guests jumping into the Brisbane River and swimming to nearby properties.

First published in the latest edition of AccomNews. Read it HERE.

Another case, highlighted in this very publication, was the less lewd but equally shocking one-bedroom apartment on the Gold Coast which had been booked through an online agent and turned into a “pop-up” day care centre. The owner found video evidence of 14 children being housed in a single 60-square-metre apartment.

These types of horror stories are becoming commonplace across the country now, but so is the media coverage of the countless inquiries into how to control the STRA market.

It was South Australia’s turn this month, with a parliamentary inquiry recommending—among other things—that the 8000 short stay accommodation places in the state be subject to a registration system.

The committee also recommended the enforcement of safety standards, a code of conduct for property owners and guests, and suggested the state government consider incentives to property owners to get them back into the rental market.

The committee said SA was “lagging behind” the short-stay sector in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, but I am not sure these states are faring much better.

Read more STRA news on AccomNews HERE

I was recently quoted in The Western Australian newspaper about this very issue. I said while the WA government should be congratulated for introducing registration and enticing property owners to return to the long-term market, more needs to be done to target the investor end of the market.

The stats speak for themselves here—85 percent of all properties on Airbnb in Western Australia are entire homes or units, and more than two-thirds of them are hosted by people or companies with multiple listings.

The largest host in WA manages 140 properties, all of which are entire homes or units; the second and third biggest hosts manage more than 100 properties each.

And that is just Airbnb.

STRA has long moved away from the original concept of making the couch or spare room available for tourists on a budget.

This is not mum and dad listing their holiday home. This is big business.

Airbnb and companies like it have become a largely unfettered, underregulated commercial property market. People are buying units and houses with the view to making them only available for STRA. These properties could and should be available for long-term rental to workers in places like Perth, Byron Bay, Townsville and the Gold Coast—but they aren’t.

And we have seen here and overseas that the growth in STRA comes at a huge cost to housing stock and rental costs.

Accommodation Australia is calling for a nationally consistent regulatory framework.

We do not advocate for taxes or levies that are simply pushed on to the user, but instead we need to place caps, fees and obligations on the short-term sector. This would be the game changer to shift more properties from the short-term to the long-term rental market.

We believe there should be a mandated cap of 90 days for un-hosted STRA, with local councils authorised to implement a lower cap depending on their situation.

There should be mandatory registration and fees for all properties being made available for short-term rental, and we should ensure STRA platforms enforce compliance and establish large fines for owners of non-compliant properties.

This proposal balances the needs of property owners with the needs of the community and would send a clear signal to property owners and the STRA industry that the days of unfettered, underregulated STRA are over.