Short-term rentals and expensive rentals: is it all Airbnb’s fault?
Short-term rentals and high rent: a correlation that does not convince the trade associations but worries the mayors. The Airbnb case
Living in Italian cities with a tourist vocation is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. Milan, with the soaring cost of properties for sale and for rent, is just the tip of the iceberg of a phenomenon that affects many cities in our country. Those who have to look for a property to rent in Florence, Lecce, Bologna, Venice, Rome but also Padua and Verona, find themselves slaloming among the thousands of short-term rental announcements for tourist locations. According to the numbers released by the Inside AirBnB portal, and taken from Fatto Quotidiano , in Venice, on AirBnB, there are 1,400 accommodations rented for 250 days a year, in Florence and Milan almost 1,600, in Rome 3,200. The vast majority of ads – 80% in Florence and Milan – concern entire apartments, not rooms.
THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF SHORT RENTALS
A vicious circle that excludes those who live and work in art cities from the rental market. Having a second home in a city of art and renting it out for short periods allows the owners to enjoy a not negligible additional income, the tourists to save a little compared to hotel costs and have the comfort of an entire home. A virtuous situation that turns into a vicious circle for those who live, work in the same city and would like to rent comfortable accommodation not too far from the circuits of the centre.
THE APPEAL OF HIGH VOLTAGE AGAINST SHORT RENTALS
It is to respond to these problems, which are becoming increasingly serious, that the mayors of twelve cities, Milan, Bergamo, Naples, Florence, Lodi, Turin, Padua, Verona, Rome, Parma, Bologna and Rimini, have signed the appeal of High voltage housing , which calls for the introduction of legislation to regulate short-term rentals. "In recent years, the spread of short-term tourist rentals, favored by the advent of some well-known digital platforms, has led to the conversion of many homes into essentially hospitality businesses, modifying the social and economic fabric of many Italian cities – reads the website of the Association -. The impact was particularly disruptive in municipalities with high housing tensions, where there were already considerable difficulties in finding affordable housing. The boom in short-term rentals has in fact reduced the availability of homes for residents and led to a widespread increase in rents, without local administrations being able to intervene effectively to reduce the deleterious effects on the real estate market".
THE PROPOSAL OF LAW RELAUNCHED BY THE COUNCILOR OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF MILAN
High housing tension, in order to lower the pressure on the issue of rents, has drawn up a bill that intends to fill a regulatory vacuum "with a national regulation that gives Municipalities a concrete tool to limit the uncontrolled diffusion of short-term leases, in order to safeguard the residence". The appeal, initially limited to the Veneto region, has received great media coverage since it was endorsed by the housing councilor of the Municipality of Milan Pierfrancesco Maran . "We need an intervention by the executive which, on the one hand, will bring order to this market without penalizing small owners," said Maran on 19 March. The explosion of tourist rentals is increasingly impacting the livability of cities. The municipal administration of Rimini noted that "it does not only concern the most fragile economic classes, but that it also concerns the middle classes and also involves seasonal tourism workers, who, not finding accommodation, often find themselves having to give up employment" .
THE INITIATIVE OF THE MAYOR OF FLORENCE DARIO NARDELLA
The mayor of Florence also shares the need for regulation. "On April 14th we will have a meeting with the parliamentarians elected in our area and we will relaunch our bill on the subject of short-term tourist rentals: this morning I spoke with the mayors of Bologna, Assisi and Lecce, who are concerned because this phenomenon is in all cities . Tourism must not be considered a problem but must be governed – said Dario Nardella -. We are talking about a global phenomenon – underlines Nardella – the idea that a single mayor can solve a global problem that affects entire nations is absurd. This is why we ask for an intervention at a national level, I hope to be able to talk about it soon with the Minister of Tourism Santanchè ". On the hypothesis of resorting to limited numbers for the historic center, as happens in Venice, Nardella clarifies that it is not on the agenda. “We have talked about it many times, in Venice in a certain sense it is possible due to the city morphology but for other cities it is very difficult – underlined the mayor -. There is no major tourist city, Italian or European, that provides for it, whether it's Barcelona, Rome, Krakow or Paris”.
THE COUNTERPROPOSAL OF CONFEDILIZIA: THE RULES EXIST, ORDER IS NEEDED
Confedilizia also intervened on the same theme which, together with 12 other organizations in the sector (Fiaip, Confassociazioni Real Estate, Property Managers Italia, Prolocatur, Aigab, Rescasa Lombardia, Breve, Myguestfriend, Host+host, Host Italia, Abbav and Fare), presented to the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Santanchè, a document with some proposals on " short-term rentals ". First of all, however, the signatories are keen to underline two aspects. The first concerns the alleged absence of regulation in our country. In support of this thesis they list a series of "regulations issued at national level in this regard" including "the obligation of the owners to withhold tax at source", " obligation to transmit data relating to contracts to the Revenue Agency stipulated ", "obligation to apply the tourist tax, with relative communications", "obligation, subject to criminal penalties, to communicate to the public security the data of the guests" and "establishment of the database of "properties intended for short-term rentals".
THE DEPOPULATION OF HISTORIC CENTERS DOESN'T DEPEND ON SHORT-TERM RENTALS
The second point of attention concerns the alleged responsibility of short-term rentals in the phenomenon of depopulation of historic centres. "In this regard, the case of Venice is exemplary, a city that has become a symbol of the "fight" against short-term rentals carried out by some – indeed limited and often interested – pressure groups (a similar argument could be made for other Italian cities such as Florence, Bologna, Rome, etc) – reads the document -. Well, the simple analysis of the data (available on the Municipality's website: https://www.comune.venezia.it/it/content/serie-storiche ) makes it possible to verify that the historic center of the Venetian capital is losing a thousand inhabitants every year since 1981 (the first year of data available, in any case well before the landing in Italy of Airbnb, which has been operating in our country for less than ten years), but it is known that the decrease has even been underway since 1951".
PROPOSALS OF CONFEDILIZIA IN SUPPORT OF THE SHORT-TERM RENTAL SECTOR
Going to the heart of the document, the associations submit five proposals to the Minister of Tourism to make the sector more functional. In the first point, it is proposed to reduce to a single fulfillment "charged by the owner (or the professional manager of his property), the electronic communication to the Police Headquarters regarding the data and information required by law with the assignment of an identification code or number registration". The second point suggests that national legislation be brought into line with the various regional and municipal regulations . The third point proposes activating the "National Identification Code" (Cin), introduced in 2019 but not yet active, to protect landlords and tenants. The last two points ask for the repeal of two regulations: the first is the one that allows the municipality of Venice to limit short-term rentals in the historic center and the second the one that "compulsorily transforms the owner who intends to rent for short periods more than four apartments".
FIRST A MAPPING THEN THE RULES FOR SHORT RENTALS
The Minister of Tourism Daniela Santanché has collected the concerns of the mayors and trade associations. "The diffusion of short-term rentals is a real problem, there is a Wild West", said the head of the Ministry of Tourism in an interview with Il Messaggero. “The few existing rules – explains the minister – are not applied. We need real regulation and we are also waiting for what Europe will come up with. I've activated a table with all the category associations, listening to the various instances, and we're going to define new rules. However, taking into account some peculiarities, for example in small villages, where there are no accommodation facilities and short-term rentals are the only solution. Furthermore, for us private property is sacred , so if a family decides to rent a room it is not right to prevent it. Different story instead if you rent 20 apartments with this formula. Rules are needed, what I have in mind will displease someone. And this will confirm to me that it will be a fair regulation”. Before any regulation, however, it is necessary "to map out, because it does not exist today" and to understand "how many short-term rentals there are and where they are. Otherwise we are talking about nothing. After we have a complete photograph, – he concludes – we will intervene”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia-on-demand/affitti-brevi-e-caro-affitti-tutto-e-solo-colpa-di-airbnb/ on Wed, 12 Apr 2023 11:43:23 +0000.