BSP research influences Mayor of London to prevent short-term lets damaging housing supply

As one of the tourism captials of the world, short-term lets are a key part of London's visitor economy, providing more choice for tourists and business travellers. However, rapid growth in short-lets in recent years, aided by sharing platforms such as Airbnb, has worsened the housing crisis. 

In July 2023, there were 81,792 listings in London on AirBnB alone. Of these, 50,401 are for entire properties, meaning at least one in every seventy-four homes in the capital is available for short-term let. There is current a lack of sufficient regulation and resources for boroughs to monitor how many of these may be being let against the rule for more than 90 days a year.

As such, the Mayor is calling on the Government to work with him and boroughs to implement a licensing system for short-term lets. This would allow local authorities to limit the numbers of licenses issued in their area and avoid entire streets or blocks being turned over exclusively to short- term lets. 

Professor Claire Colomb and Dr Tatiana Moreira de Souza's comparative research, Regulating Short-Term. Rentals Platform-based property rentals in European cities: the policy debates, shows how European city governments have tried to regulate Short-Term Lets to strike a balance between their cities’ openness to visitors and the protection of the housing stock for long-term residents who are faced with an acute housing crisis.

Read the Mayor of London's full article here.