Amid controversy over the impact Airbnb is having on certain cities, the home-sharing platform launched a new effort to be more transparent.
The company now lists home-sharing metrics for key metropolitan areas, allowing local residents to glimpse information such as how much money landlords in their area are making, how many nights a year the typical property is rented, and where the most listings are located. So far the tool includes 2015 data from 10 areas, including Los Angeles, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, with more to come.
“This is part of our Community Compact,” spokesman Nick Papas wrote in an email, referring to a promise Airbnb made last year to be a good neighbor in the community and to work with cities it operates in, “and our ongoing effort to share more data and information with community leaders and members of the public.”
In Rio, for example, 45 percent of hosts share their permanent home, 21 percent say home-sharing saved them from eviction or foreclosure, and a typical listing is booked 15 nights a year, according to Airbnb.com. The data was taken directly from Airbnb’s platform and from surveys of landlords.
Airbnb previously released data about the San Francisco market, where an especially heated debate has raged as fair housing activists claim full-time landlords list multiple properties on the platform, removing them from the regular rental market and further exacerbating the city’s affordable housing crisis. As of March, the company found 20 percent of hosts who listed their entire homes on the platform had multiple property listings.
Airbnb has been working hard to improve its image, promising to crack down on listings that violate San Francisco’s ban on certain professional short-term rentals, and reminding residents that the city collects tax revenue from the platform. The new data feature seems to be another way for Airbnb to get its message across that it primarily serves regular people listing a spare bedroom for extra cash, or opening their home while on vacation — not professional landlords hoping to use Airbnb to rake in more cash than they could on the traditional housing market.
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