July 7, 2016
If you take light rail through downtown Seattle these days, it’s hard not to notice the glut of Airbnb ads. There are huge posters on station platforms featuring smiling Airbnb hosts with lines such as, “Our spare room financed our dream business.” The ads highlight Airbnb’s central message: that it is a service for people to generate some extra income by renting out their guest bedroom or no-longer-used kid’s room or whole house while they’re away. And while the majority of Seattle hosts fall into that category, some low-income housing advocates and elected officials are concerned about a growing trend of commercial investors buying up housing stock to list it on short-term rental platforms. They say losing long-term rentals to the short-term market will exacerbate the city’s existing problem with rising rents and displacement….
Source: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/seattle-airbnb-laws-displacement-concerns
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