Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (net worth USD 13.8 billion – about AUD17.7 billion) doesn’t really worry about disruptive house parties – including 177 deadly shootings and counting in the US since May 2019. Chesky has recently said that the ‘lack of new hosts’ is Airbnb’s big worry. Airbnb does not require ID verification at the time of booking and check in, nor does it require actual deposits. And it uses algorithms to penalise landlords who don’t allow “instant bookings” on it

In a corridor of Parliament House in Macquarie Street, during a break in an Inquiry into what was meant to be the adequacy of the regulation of short-term holiday letting, a Strategic Planning Manager from a South Coast Local Council offered his business card and an invitation to meet separately with representatives from Expedia/Stayz and the Australian Short-Term Rental Association (ASTRA), referred to at the time as HRIA. What had just been raised and discussed before the I

An Airbnb landlord writes that she’s at her “wits end”. She “sleeps 12” but lives 500 kms away from the house. She “personally would not go to a holiday house if they had cameras”, but wants to start counting “guests & checking parties”. One ‘tip’ she received from another ‘host’: “No blokes…blokes lie through their teeth – fishing weekend = getting smashed, golfing weekend = strippers”. Another ‘host’ writes: “I also find middle aged women after a few bevies can be real

“In conjunction with new regulatory framework for short-term rental accommodation (STRA) being rolled out by the NSW Government”, NSW Planning is “running a series of information sessions designed specifically for councils”. The NSW Environment Planning and Assessment Act (The Act), in terms of all residential dwellings (class 1a and class 2 buildings and class 4 part of a building), “prohibits a dwelling from being used for the purpose of short-term rental accommodation…Thi

By way of a ‘no reply’ email, the NSW Government has today announced ‘New provisions for Short-term Rental Accommodation (STRA)’. “The NSW Government is pleased to announce that the new statewide Short-Term Rental Accommodation (STRA) planning policy has been made today, 9 April 2021 and will come into effect on 30 July 2021, to provide industry participants time to familiarise themselves with the new policy before it takes effect. The new statewide policy for STRA will benef

Queensland CHO Jeanette Young confirmed at press meeting two days ago: “We saw it with that party down at Byron Bay, those 11 people, they were in an Airbnb, so a private residence, and now all of them, virtually all of them, have become infected (with COVID-19).” Neighbours Not Strangers telephoned and twice wrote to NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard, asking for confirmation of the address of the Airbnb property where all infected holidaymakers stayed. Twenty-seven ‘NSW COV