[tptacek]

Then, there you go, that's part of the sketchiness of Airbnb: a public policy decision was made to limit the number of short-term rental places (hotels, b-n-b's, etc), and part of what Airbnb is doing is simply overriding that by overwhelming the enforcement capabilities of cities.

[dorchadas]

Exactly. And it's definitely contributing to the housing crises in some cities. People would rather buy apartments/houses and put them on AirBnB, instead of renting them out to the people who work and need to live in the city. I know it's definitely part of the issue in Ireland, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the case elsewhere as well.

[JamesBarney]

Is there any data on this? I just can't imagine the market is that large, except in the smallest of town with the largest of tourist attractions.

I mean most large cities have hundreds of thousands to millions of people. I just can't imagine Airbnb would even be 1% of available properties.