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Airbnb launches government home-sharing petition in Hong Kong
Reading Time: 2 minutesHong Kong: Airbnb has appealed for Hong Kong residents to sign an online petition in support of home-sharing in the city. This was an attempt to persuade the city’s government to reconsider a tough amendment bill against illegal short-term rentals and unauthorised guest houses. The home-sharing platform’s online petition is entitled “Protect Home-Sharing in Hong […]
Christchurch Airbnb operators face paying $1000 bill or getting a permit
Reading Time: 2 minutesNew Zealand: Christchurch homeowners renting entire properties on Airbnb may have to get a permit under updated council short-term rental regulations. On Wednesday, Christchurch’s regulatory performance committee discussed applying a business rate on whole properties used for hosting short-term guests on Airbnb for four or more months a year, or a potential permit system. The […]
San Francisco Airbnb landlords agree to pay $2.25 million for illegal renting
Reading Time: 2 minutesSan Francisco: A San Francisco couple has paid $2.25 million to settle claims they ran an illegal hotel chain through the vacation rental platform Airbnb. Landlords Darren and Valerie Lee agreed to pay the cash to cover fines and investigation costs after offering 14 apartments as short-term rentals instead of lawfully renting the units to […]
Dubai startup Frank Porter expected to triple growth rate by the end of 2018
Reading Time: 2 minutesDubai: Dubai-based property management company Frank Porter is set to triple its growth rate by the end of 2018, a year after its launch. The Dubai-based start-up manages private properties available for short term rent on home-sharing channels such as Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Expedia and HomeAway. Frank Porter founder Anna Skigin said the firm had […]
Prague residents call for increased regulation of short-term rental services
Reading Time: 3 minutesPrague: Prague may have become Europe’s fifth favourite tourist destination but its residents are petitioning for increased regulation of Airbnb in the city. They blame services like Airbnb for fuelling a 50 per cent jump in property values since 2013 and have called for the local government to raise taxes, tighten rules and limit the […]
Calls for restrictions on Airbnb rental properties in Newcastle
Reading Time: 2 minutesUnited Kingdom: Calls have been made for new restrictions on Airbnb in Newcastle, amid fears homes being rented out will stop more people living in the city centre. Concerns have been raised that bringing some of the city centre’s vacant office space back into use as housing may not have the desired effect as landlords […]
Jacksonville Airbnb community welcomes record numbers of guests
Reading Time: < 1 minuteJacksonville: Airbnb has announced its host community in Jacksonville welcomed a record 1,600 guests and earned a combined $300,000 over the weekend. This coincided with Saturday’s American college football match between Florida and Georgia, which has long been hyped as a noteworthy sporting rivalry. Airbnb reported that the weekend’s festivities meant Jacksonville was one of […]
Hamburg and Berlin tightening the screw on Airbnb users in their cities
Reading Time: 2 minutesGermany: Governments in Hamburg and Berlin are leading the regulatory charge against Airbnb in the wake of a European backlash against the online rental platform. Hamburg has slashed permitted annual rentals per property from 180 days to 60, while raising fines tenfold. Berlin, meanwhile, has implemented a registration scheme to control Airbnb rentals in which […]
Properly secures $8.5 million funding for management platform for Airbnb hosts
Reading Time: 2 minutesUnited States: San Francisco-based Properly, Inc., which has a cleaning and quality management platform for Airbnb hosts and vacation rental owners, has announced an $8.5 million Series A funding. The funding was led by Asset Management Ventures, with participation by AccorHotels and prominent travel investors, including Ev Williams, Simon Lehmann, Fabio Cannavale, Tobias Wann, and […]
Airbnb criticises apparent ‘cut and paste job’ short-term letting regulations
Reading Time: 2 minutesIreland: Airbnb has claimed measures to regulate short-term lettings and home-sharing sites appear to be ‘a cut and paste job’ from regulations in other cities. Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy announced regulations for short-term lettings on Thursday that are due to come into force in June 2019. Under the new restrictions, owners of buy-to-let properties […]