[telesilla]

Cities simply cannot continue having living space rented out for tourists, increasing rent for the residents and worse, removing properties entirely from the residential market.

I will be SO glad when AirBnB'ing an entire apartment as a business is shut down: I try and use it exclusively with private rooms and where it is clearly the host's usual home, or it's a property that is created specifically for tourism. I also find that in areas where city tourist tax is applied, AirBnB apartments aren't much cheaper than hotel rooms: at which point I usually look for a hotel instead if I can get better amenities. In a city like Chicago, where weekend hotels go for $250-300 a night on the low/mid end in the Loop, you are still looking at about the same with an AirBnB apartment, once you add service and cleaning fees.

Can anyone prove to me, that this isn't pushing up rents because landlords and tenants can now afford higher monthly rents knowing they can AirBnB a few weekends or more to cover the higher costs?

[dorchadas]

Oh, it's definitely driving up rent. Even if not for the cost you suggested, simply because people can make more money renting out an AirBnB for a weekend or a summer than they can by renting to a family for a year. So it drives up the rent to compensate for that. And AirBnB also increases the demand for rental places, as every apartment/house that is bought to be used as an AirBnB is one less to be used for residents of the city.