Real estate professionals and experts say they don’t expect much of a reprieve for renters paying top dollar when as many as 3,000 units now with Airbnb and other short-term rental companies are put back on Boston’s long-term rental market next month.
“Many of these buildings began transitioning these Airbnb units to annualized rents or 3-6 month furnished programs well in advance, and that will minimize the number of units that may come (back) to traditional leasing programs,” said Jason Gell, president-elect of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.
New city regulations that took effect in January bar nonresident property owners from renting out rooms or homes on short-term rental apps like Airbnb — a move housing advocates hoped might help to stabilize rents.
Boston’s Housing Chief Sheila Dillon on Tuesday told the Herald she estimates 3,000 units in Boston could return to the long-term market next month. By Dec. 1, people who aren’t registered with the city won’t be able to list their units on the short-term rental site.
“They’ll shift right into the rental market,” said Larry Rideout, who runs Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty.
Rideout said the newly available units will add to the supply on the market, which may help curb prices from rising.
Kathy Brown of the Boston Tenants Association said she thinks it’s important to get those units back on the market to increase the general availability of apartments in housing-strapped Boston, but said she doubts they’ll be affordable to the city’s low- and middle-income earners.
“I am concerned of their affordability level based on what they were bought for and what investors were expecting to earn from short-term rentals,” she said.
Properties listed on short-term rental sites are often much more lucrative than long-term leases.
Gell said what is really needed to unlock affordability in the Boston area is smart, uniform zoning code to spur on development and the opportunity to use city- and state-owned land to develop affordable home ownership opportunities instead of the hotels and high-end rentals that are being built around the city.
An initiative by Mayor Martin Walsh aims to see 69,000 new housing units built in the city by 2030, about 20% of which would be affordable to low-income residents.
