Boston short-term-rental applications escalate as Airbnb/VRBO deadline looms
Increasing numbers of people are trying to get their short-term-rental units approved, but more than half continue to be rejected, Boston officials say as Sunday’s deadline looms.
The city has received around 1,700 applications as of Friday, so far approving 729 and denying 740, said Claudia Correa, assistant commissioner for housing in the city’s Inspectional Services Department.
“We’ve seen that people are trying to apply last-minute,” Correa said, adding that she expects a continued torrent of applications in the coming weeks.
That’s because Airbnb, by far the largest short-term-rental platform, will begin disallowing all noncompliant listings starting Sunday, when people who don’t have a city registration number won’t be able to post listings on the site. A city ordinance went into effect in September that bans nonresident landlords from renting out “investment properties” for short amounts of time.
Under the law that went into effect in September, people can only list their residence and adjoining ones on the short-term market.
One of the main goals of this ordinance — passed last year and then fought for months in the courts by Airbnb — is to free up what officials in housing-crunched Boston say is thousands of units owned by people who put them up year-round for short-term rentals, rather than conventional longer-term leases.
Administration officials have said this could result in several thousand units suddenly returning to the tight apartment-rental market, though the exact numbers are unclear.