An estimated 6000 homes have potentially been taken out of Sydney's permanent rental housing market as landlords list properties on home-sharing websites such as Airbnb.
New data from the University of Sydney's Urban Housing Lab suggests the home-sharing website may be worsening housing affordability particularly in Sydney's inner city and coastal suburbs as well as the NSW North Coast.
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An analysis of property listings in April 2017 found about 28 per cent of Airbnb listings were entire properties, while 70 per cent were rooms and shared rooms.
"This equates to around 6000 homes taken out of the permanent rental market and 17,000 Sydney households using their homes, rooms or beds for extra income," said Professor Nicole Gurran.
![Airbnb landlord Lynne Segal said the home-sharing website helps her afford to stay in her Newtown terrace.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170823095741im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/x/l/3/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxxh7l.png/1503279859513.jpg)
However, an Airbnb spokesman said Sydney's expensive housing pre-dates the arrival of the home-share website.
He said the majority of Airbnb hosts in Australia list their primary residence â the home they live in â for an average of 30 nights per year.
"That's not a home being taken off the market," he said. "It is everyday people using their home maybe when they are on holidays or travelling to make a little extra money."Â
Older women face limited choices
The spokesman said Airbnb was an "economic lifeline" for landlords such as Lynne Segal, who credits the home-sharing website with helping her afford to stay in her Newtown terrace.
!["When you're a woman in your early 60s, your choices are greatly diminished in terms of the job market": Lynne Segal ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170823095741im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/x/l/3/c/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxxh7l.png/1503279859513.jpg)
With few job prospects and a low amount of superannuation, Ms Segal said her finances looked grim when she turned 60.
"When you're a woman in your early 60s, your choices are greatly diminished in terms of the job market," she said.
![Lynne Segal said she did not believe Airbnb had worsened housing affordability in inner city Sydney.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170823095741im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/x/l/3/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxxh7l.png/1503279859513.jpg)
Ms Segal's principal asset is her house, depopulated after her children left home, which she had renovated to create a sitting room and bathroom for short-term guests.
An Airbnb landlord for three years, Ms Segal lists two rooms on the home-sharing website for $70 and $80 a night.
Ms Segal said she had kept prices low to attract longer-term tenants, and was currently hosting an English-language student from Italy for five months and a university student from Malaysia for three months.
Her only complaint was the untidiness of some guests.
"A PhD student came here for a semester from Denmark and the only problem I had with him was he did not change his sheets for three months," she said. "I had to throw them out afterwards."
Ms Segal said she did not want to get a housemate on a more permanent basis: "I wouldn't make as much money."
But she said she did not believe Airbnb had worsened housing affordability in the area.
Airbnb-type rentals also stand accused of ruining neighbourhood amenity in parts of Sydney â most notably in the Bridgeport apartment complex in Macquarie Street.
But Ms Segal said peace reigned in the back streets of Newtown, lined with century-old terraces.
"Half of my neighbours are doing it anyway," she said. "Yeah, I mean not half but everyone's very tolerant of it."
Impact on housing affordability
Professor Gurran's new research also found a cluster of Airbnb listings in tourist hot spots â Sydney's inner city and coastal suburbs as well as the NSW North Coast â which she said may have always offered tourist accommodation.
"However, with the emergence of the online or internet-enabled, home-sharing platforms, it is easier for home owners to list their home as tourist accommodation," she said. "This has the potential to only exacerbate the affordability problem and supply for renters and buyers alike."
The new research is part of an ongoing study about Airbnb's impact on housing affordability by the Urban Housing Lab.
Professor Gurran said the number of listings on Airbnb for entire homes was about five times the estimated number of rental vacancies â the proportion of vacant rental stock that was available for people to rent on a permanent basis â in the Waverley local government area in April 2017.
Airbnb listings of entire homes in Mosman, Woollahra and the City of Sydney, as well as Byron Bay and Ballina shires, also significantly outstripped rental vacancies.
"The results show that Airbnb listings have potential impact on rental housing markets in both Sydney and the Northern Rivers, with homes more or less permanently available as tourist accommodation, accounting for more than 50 per cent of rental vacancy rates in most localities," she said.
But Airbnb's impact on housing affordability remains contentious.
Anthony Meaker, the head of company-owned property management at McGrath, said: "We have seen some isolated incidents of high-value holiday properties going down the Airbnb route, predominantly in harbourside and beachside markets. However, we are not seeing an exodus, just isolated cases."
A report, published in March 2017, by the Tenants Union of NSW suggested Airbnb had yet to make an impact on the private rental market: "It is worth noting in passing that lower income renters in Sydney's private market have mostly already been moved out of the areas where Airbnb is located."
Airbnb's spokesman said the home-sharing website was a small player in the housing market: "In Sydney, which has the most listings of any Australian city and double the number of listings of Melbourne, our community still only represents a tiny fraction â around 1 per cent â of the local market.
"To put that in perspective, there are close to 10 times as many empty homes in Australia as there are Airbnb listings," he said.Â
The NSW government's Short-term Holiday Letting in NSW Options Paper, released last month, canvases potential regulatory changes to address concerns about the impact of Airbnb such as noise, waste, traffic and parking as well as housing affordability.
"At present, the rules for home sharing in NSW aren't fit for purpose," Airbnb's spokesman said. "Right now, we have a confusing and complex patchwork of rules that were written well before the internet even existed."Â