Airbnb sucks homes out of residential use. Much-needed housing is turned from homes into holiday and leisure lets. Communities are broken up as locals move further away to find affordable housing. Meanwhile short-let properties stand empty for half the year and local businesses struggle to survive.

Airbnb has driven a 1000% increase in homes lost to short-letting in just 5 years.

The issue has gained national media coverage and you can read articles about how Airbnb is destroying villages and on the sharp rise in Airbnb listings in coastal areas. 

Every red dot is an Airbnb listing. Many of those could be a home instead. 

[Data from insideairbnb.com/london]

This isn't about stopping people going on holiday. Airbnb can be a great platform to find a cabin tucked away somewhere beautiful or a room for a short city stay. However, it becomes a problem when whole homes are let by the weekend or week rather than being long term rental properties that a family can make their home. It is a problem when so-called investors purchase large amounts of a community's housing stock, pushing up house prices and using up what could be somebody's home. 

We campaign for stricter controls.

We are campaigning for communities across England to be able to set local controls through licensing and locally agreed limits on change of use of housing. This is possible in Scotland and Wales but England's communities are currently unprotected. In England Government offers just voluntary licensing schemes. 

Recently, after pressure from campaigners and local councils, Government suggested they may 'consult' on change of use legislation. This is why we have to keep up the pressure for change to protect communities. We have achieved lots of coverage of the issue - our voice is being heard but we need your help to make it louder

 

SUPPORT US TO CAMPAIGN FOR CHANGE

Why we need your help?

We are Action on Empty Homes. We campaign for empty homes to be brought into use for people in housing need.

Short-let and Airbnb properties ARE empty homes.

These are properties that could be homes for families but instead

take up much-needed housing stock, eroding communities in the process. 

So far we have been lobbying nationally, working with housing and data experts to publicise the damaging impacts, and supporting local campaigns where funders resource us. This has delivered media coverage for those local campaigns and got Government thinking about change - our voice is being heard but we need your help to make it louder. 

All our activity is funded by individual donations and charitable foundations. We need your support to resource that local campaigning and to drive change.

 

We're campaigning on GoFundMe for support. What we'll do with your support:

• Persuade Government to empower local authorities through new legislation to deliver change.
• Arm local communities with the knowledge and tools to persuade local politicians to back our campaign for Community Control of Airbnb and Short-lets
• Show how uncontrolled short-lettings can distort local housing markets and destroy housing options for local people

 

Let's work together to stop short-lets and Airbnb destroying our communities

and sucking away our much-needed housing stock.