Short-term rental accommodation (STRA) provider Stayz recently released a report by ACIL Allen Consulting. It indicated that in the Illawarra/South Coast region, short-term rental accommodation generated more than $266.8 million in economic uplift and supported up to 1778 jobs in 2016.

In April, the state government announced it would impose new rules on property owners who let out spare rooms or entire homes, but had yet to finalise the details of the regulatory changes.

Report shows benefit of holiday rentals to the Illawarra

The Neighbours Not Strangers group have criticised platforms such as Airbnb when they push homes away from residential use and into short-term lets. They believe share accommodation providers can have an adverse impact on housing supply, and rental and housing affordability.

“Although there are claims (STRA) is great because it brings tourists into areas like the Illawarra… (In many commissioned reports) there are no negatives applied to the effects of removing housing from our housing stock,” Sydney-based convenor Trish Burt said. 

“You also have people in suburban areas and in strata properties who have really done their due diligence when they’ve purchased and moved into these residential areas or buildings, only to be faced with living in unregulated and unmanned hotel-style buildings.

“Let’s say for argument’s sake that Airbnb, Stayz and all these short-term operators disappeared overnight… would that mean that tourists stopped travelling?

“Or would that mean that tourists would go back to doing what they used to do, which was staying in regulated accommodation establishments meeting all the requirements, and generating jobs within the tourism and accommodation industry?

“The San Francisco Financial Controllers’ report, published in 2015, reveals that for every home lost to short-term rentals, even after income derived from tourist expenditure, their city loses US$250,000 to $300,000 per year every year.”

This report notes that short-term rentals provide extra income to hosts and increases the amount of visitor spending that occurs. It also says in cases when a host temporarily vacates the unit for a visitor, the city's economy receives host income and visitor spending, but may lose resident spending.