My recent blog about a Burnaby man being evicted so his landlord can rent out the unit on Airbnb brought in a lot of responses from local residents upset at the impact this has on the housing stock in our city.
One reader told me that his Metrotown-area neighbour has forced out her tenants so she can resume running a “house hotel” in which five rooms are all rented out on Airbnb.
“One by one the renters have all left over the past months,” said the reader. “Now visitors keep showing up and staying for one night and then leaving. This is an illegal ‘house hotel’ because I know the owner hasn’t gotten permission from the city to do this.”
People who rent out their properties on Airbnb took a huge hit when the COVID-19 pandemic started and many ended up just doing month-by-month rentals for people desperately looking for a place to live. But as travel restrictions lift, many of these folks are going back to posting their units on Airbnb because they can make so much more money.
The neighbour didn’t want to disclose the exact address or have their name used because they didn’t want their neighbour to know it was them who contacted the media. The neighbour said he has confronted the owner before about this and been threatened with legal action, but the neighbour said they will still try and get the city to crack down on this.
“It’s sad because you’re seeing more rentals disappear,” the neighbour said.
Another reader wrote in feeling sure that the situation of Chad in my previous blog was referring to a landlord that they know.
“This is an interesting article because I'm pretty sure you are referring to the building across from mine,” the woman said. “Calling the landlord or owner (or whatever he is) a liar is probably the kindest thing you could call him. How about crook, manipulator, lawbreaker, self-serving, self-important jerk? You cannot operate an Airbnb business out of a rental apartment building. It is against the law in Burnaby. This guy (if it is the same person) has been investigated previously and also again recently, or so the City of Burnaby tells me. He needs to have the book thrown at him. People are so desperate for affordable rentals to live in and this guy is using his building to make way more money by operating it as an Airbnb. He should be in jail. And meanwhile, the legitimate rentals skyrocket in price. Why? Because people like him are creating the shortages. Tell Chad to contact the City of Burnaby if he is, in fact, living in an apartment building with multiple units. The landlord does not have a leg to stand on. We all live in fear in Metrotown.”
PadMapper just released its latest Canadian National Rent Report, and Burnaby was ranked as the 3rd most expensive city to rent in the nation last month, said the report, and the price of one bedroom units in Burnaby remained flat at a median of $1,700, while two-bedroom units grew 0.9% to $2,270.
So, yeah, bad times all around.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
