Important housing policy article in the AJC

How short-term rental investors took over a historic Atlanta high-rise

Landmark residents say they once lived in a tranquil condo community. Then came the short-term rental businesses, the legal threats … and lawsuits.

"It was the evening of Jan. 17, 2024. In recent weeks, short-term rental guests, who now outnumbered full-time residents, had been running up and down hallways outside his home on the seventh floor, setting off alarms."

Read the entire article (link follows), but first some commentary: Airbnb-type rentals (short-term rentals) are a problem for three reasons:

1) Landlords turn long-term rentals into nightly Airbnbs so they can make more money ($200/night vs. $1,700/month), displacing tenants and driving up market rents as supply is reduced.

2) Investors (who often don't even live in the same city, state, or country as their Airbnbs) buy condos and single-family detached houses for Airbnb, which leads to higher house prices.

3) When Airbnbs become 50% (or more!) of the units in a condominium, the building essentially becomes a hotel. Remaining long-term tenants see their stable neighbors replaced by nightly guests who may be noisy, messy, disrespectful, or engage in illegal activity (e.g., drugs, gun violence, sex/human trafficking, etc.). In other words, quality of life plummets. This is also a problem in single-family detached neighborhoods (i.e., the "Airbnb party house" on the block).