British Columbia’s new legislation that would ban short-term rental in secondary investment properties will cause a whole lot of pain – and without producing the desired affordable housing, says a Kelowna, B.C., property manager.
“We will see that – or we will see a ton of hitting the real estate market, depreciating the values of them. And I don’t think people are going to cash out equal to the mortgage they owe on the property, so investors will be walking away with empty pockets. It’s terrible.” “In the summer here, they are looking to cash flow probably upwards of $20,000 a month off of those places,” she said. “I know the long-term rent simply won’t pay the bill.
Nathan Rotman, regional policy director for Airbnb Canada, said they were surprised by the announcement, following talks with government officials. His company commissioned its own report to determine if its platform was having a direct impact on rents in Canada. The non-profit Conference Board of Canada took on the assignment and released a report this month that found there wasn’t a conclusive relationship between Airbnb and overall rents. Airbnb gave the organization five years’ worth of data not available to anyone else.