In towns where thousands of homes are Airbnbs, renters want a tax

Louise Dwyer and Mike Crouch remember a time when finding a rental in the NSW Northern Rivers was easy and affordable. The couple lives in a temporary housing village in Mullumbimby established for those displaced by the 2022 floods.The pod villages will close by the end of the year, and the couple is among the village residents struggling to find secure accommodation.They have booked caravan parks and hotel rooms for the holiday period after their lease ends in December."Prior to the floods, we had really great affordable housing … for many, many years," Ms Dwyer said."If we were to get a two-bedroom house [now], we'd probably have to pay anywhere from $800 to $1,000 a week, which we don't have."Louise Dwyer and Mike Crouch say they are unable to afford a long-term rental big enough for themselves, their son and pets. (ABC News: Emma Rennie)Ms Dwyer and Mr Crouch backed calls for a holiday rental levy, especially if the funds were directed towards housing support."Locals are being pushed out; they're being priced out of living in their communities, which is really sad," Ms Dwyer said.Homelessness NSW is calling for a levy on short-term holiday rentals to bolster long-term rental stock, claiming it could raise around $50 million for housing support.The proposed levy is based on a model introduced in Victoria last year, where a 7.5 per cent tax was placed on revenue collected by short-stay providers who rented their properties on platforms such as Airbnb and Stayz.When announcing the policy, the Victorian government said the revenue would be spent on social and affordable housing.Homelessness NSW chief executive Dom Rowe said it would help raise money for homelessness services and incentivise long-term rentals."In the last year, they were able to raise $85 million to go to those most in need, so that's a pretty impressive policy setting that we know works as it's worked in that other jurisdiction," Ms Rowe said."People are finding it really hard to find rental accommodation in the private rental market."And short stays basically take properties out of that long-term rental market and so makes it more difficult for people."Byron Bay is a popular destination for short-term accommodation rentals. (ABC North Coast: Emma Rennie)Figures disputedThe advocacy group released an analysis of short-term and long-term rentals this week.It has compared the number of long-term rentals advertised on realestate.com.au to the number of short-stay listings recorded by the state's tourism body, Destination NSW, across the March quarter.Ms Rowe said there were 49,985 short-stay listings across the state compared to 22,347 long-term rentals.The Mid North Coast had 4,676 Airbnb listings to 584 long-term rentals and the Northern Rivers, which includes Byron Bay, had 5,303 Airbnb listings and 393 ongoing rentals.However, the Australia & New Zealand Short Term Rental Association board member Catherine Shields said the analysis was not "comparing apples with apples".Catherine Shields owns a holiday rental business on the NSW south coast. (Supplied: Catherine Shields)"Short-term rentals are available for most of the year because that's the nature of their availability," she said."Whereas permanent rentals are very tightly held, particularly in the Northern Rivers, and they probably only ever come up for rent once a year or longer."The state government requires vacant homes and apartments used for short-term rental accommodation (STRA) in NSW to be registered.There are currently 30,599 STRA registered statewide, including 2,987 in the Northern Rivers, 3,440 on the Mid North Coast and 9,972 in the Sydney area.Ms Shields said some properties were listed across multiple websites such as Airbnb and Stayz, which could inflate listing figures and might explain the discrepancy in data used by Homelessness NSW.Control measures hotly debated The Byron Shire Council introduced a 60-days-per-year cap on holiday rentals in 2024, in an effort to encourage more properties back into the long-term market.The measure yielded mixed results a year after its introduction.Ms Rowe said a levy on rental income would be more effective."I think the cap is very difficult to police and short-term rentals can go from one platform to another, so it's difficult to track them online," she said.The Short Term Rental Association has long made the case that many holiday rentals would not be affordable long-term rentals due to their market value."It's ironic that they think it's a good idea to get rid of the short-term rentals, but the number of people, particularly women, who are employed in that sector is really significant," Ms Shields said.The short-term rental sector says many holiday homes in hotspots such as Byron Bay would still be unaffordable as long-term rentals. (ABC North Coast: Emma Rennie)In a statement, NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully said the best way to increase long-term rental housing supply across the state was by increasing the overall housing pipeline."While we know there is always more to do, NSW has more homes under construction than any other state, with over 80,000 homes underway and more in the pipeline."