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New data shows the number of Airbnbs and other short-term accommodation hit record highs at the end of 2024, driving up rents for longer-term tenants in tourism hotspots.
The Short-term rental accommodation: models, impacts and policy responses report from the Australian Housing and Research Institute reveals listings on short-term rental accommodation (STRA) platforms hit 174,558 at the end of 2024.
In Hobart in particular, the number of frequently available whole-property Airbnb listings in December 2024 outnumbered long-term rental vacancies by 36 to one. More than half (57 per cent) of Airbnb listings nationally were managed by accounts that had at least two properties.
Despite growing numbers and professionalisation of the market, a patchwork of regulation means there is very little data available on listings, the length of stays and number of bookings.
Professor Nicole Gurran, lead author on the report and lecturer in urban planning and housing at the University of Sydney, said platforms such as Airbnb had created a booming unregulated industry, based on an assumption home owners were letting out spare rooms and vacant holiday homes in a short-stay “sharing economy”.
“Of course that’s not what’s happening,” she said. “It’s a very sophisticated business.”
Tasmania is the only state to require registration and reporting at the booking level. While other states require registration by owners, and Western Australia and NSW have set caps on the length properties can be available for short-term accommodation, useful data remains scant.
“Aside from Tasmania, we’re not getting detailed property-level and booking-level data from platforms being provided to the planning authorities so that they can check compliance,” Gurran said.
“Registration with information that we’re able to verify is really important. And that’s a pre-condition for any effective regulation.”
The report’s key recommendation is a central register, with a raft of other targeted interventions based on the fuller picture the data provides.
PRD Real Estate chief economist Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo said the lack of standardised data across jurisdictions was a by-product of the relative immaturity of the short-stay market and the perception that it was largely a “side hustle” for many property owners rather than a developed industry.
“We’re not groping in the dark – we do have some data, but it is quite inconsistent,” she said.
“I can’t easily compare, for example, a short-term rental in Tamworth versus a short-term rental in Bendigo.”
Eacham Curry, senior director of government and corporate affairs at Stayz, said the platform supported “a real-time, statewide registration database of STRA properties”, as well as a code of conduct for owners, guests and agents.
Both Gurran and Mardiasmo noted that Airbnb and other platforms could fill a gap in places with seasonal or occasional influxes of visitors, where hotel capacity could not meet demand. These areas may not have a consistent need for long-term rentals, or host holiday homes that would never be on the long-term market.
“Although, I must say it wasn’t the case in the case study areas that we looked at,” Gurran said.
While hotels are regulated with strict conditions around capacity, fire safety and parking, short-stays are listed by individual owners, often without restrictions.
Hobart, Australia’s smallest state capital, also has the highest concentration of short-term rentals. It had a long-term rental vacancy rate of 0.2 per cent in the March quarter, the lowest in the country, Domain data shows.
It also had the biggest jump in median weekly house rents, up by 7.8 per cent annually.
Mardiasmo said some tenants were looking to short-stay accommodation as an alternative to rentals, as both house and unit rents hit record highs in the majority of capital cities.
“Especially in this current rental shortage … because you can negotiate a bulk price for a month, or two weeks, stay,” she said.
She noted that without reporting, data about these tenants fell off the radar, leaving them with few of the protections offered in the regulated long-term rental market.
“Stayz believes housing availability and affordability are complex issues and cannot be solved by arbitrary caps, limits or fees on the STRA sector,” Curry said.
An obvious hurdle to the recommended regulations will be the need for collaboration across federal, state and local government jurisdictions.
Local governments were often left with the job of monitoring compliance of state regulations without adequate resources, Gurran said.
Brisbane City Council scrapped plans last Tuesday to introduce a short-term rental permit system, including bans in certain areas, with Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner saying council wanted to avoid adding “further uncertainty” in the housing market after the federal budget.
“Local government should be enabled to respond to their particular local needs,” Gurran said. “And the bigger picture is making sure we’ve got enough social and affordable housing, and adequate protection for renters from unfair eviction.”
Airbnb has been approached for comment.
