Twelve years ago, when Airbnb was first launched on an unsuspecting world, its concept of “home-sharing” sounded like such a good idea. But that is not how the San Francisco-based company came to be valued at more than €27 billion, at least before the Covid-19 pandemic trashed international tourism. The real returns derived from short-letting entire homes, such as the two-bedroom apartment off Temple Bar Square in Dublin that “earned” its owner €79,380 in 2015 as a result of being rented out to tourists via Airbnb, with a 90 per cent occupancy rate. But the short-term letting regulations introduced in Ireland a year ago this month have failed to make any impact in recovering lost stock, which included more than 5,000 houses or apartments that were being short-let in Dublin via Airbnb alone before Covid-19 intervened. And let’s not forget that this was happening in the midst of an acute housing crisis.

Source: The Irish Times July 11, 2020 05:00 UTC