Are Airbnb rentals eating up Calgary's housing market? No, says StatCan report

The number of short-term rental housing in Calgary is below the national average, according to new data from Statistics Canada. Signs about Airbnb regulations at Vancouver properties are seen earlier this year.

Short-term rentals such as Airbnb make up just a fraction of Calgary’s housing market, new data shows — and that number could be even lower than reported, says one expert.

New Statistics Canada data on short-term rentals comes as regions across North America grapple with how they should approach the issue of short-term rentals amid the housing crisis, with the City of Calgary preparing to begin public engagement on the issue after researchers submitted a lengthy report on the issue.

The report , published last week, found the number of short-term rentals with the potential to be long-term dwellings in Calgary to be 1,846 units, amounting to 0.33 per cent of the city’s total housing supply. That’s well under the national average of 0.69 per cent for potential housing units’ share of Canada’s total supply.

The report itself concludes the share of short-term rentals “is generally small in most Canadian markets.”

Whether short-term rentals impact housing affordability wasn’t the paper’s focus, the authors wrote — however they noted other factors influencing the housing crisis include population growth, multiple-property investors and financing factors such as interest rates.

Calgary’s proportion of potential long-term units ranks on the relatively lower end compared to other major Canadian cities. In Vancouver, 0.45 per cent of all units were deemed potential long-term dwellings. More widely, B.C.’s portion of short-term rentals in the housing market was a nation-leading 1.38 per cent.

In Alberta, that number was 0.56 per cent.

“The number of short-term rentals that could be put back in the permanent housing market — it is small in most jurisdictions, and it is particularly small in Calgary,” said Lindsay Tedds, economist at the University of Calgary. Tedds is heading a multi-year review of the city’s short-term rental market , which will ultimately inform Calgary city council’s future regulatory direction.

While the StatCan study excludes properties listed on the short-term rental market for less than 180 days per year to account for homeowners who rent their space seasonally, Tedds argued it’s an “arbitrary threshold,” saying there are likely several season homeowners who rent their spaces for longer. She added it’s highly unlikely 100 per cent of short-term rentals highlighted in the report would be returned to the market should they be disallowed by regulation.

Tedds’ team at U of C submitted their 500-page report to the city in June. The city will move in the fall to public consultation on the matter.

At the conclusion of 2½ years studying the issue, Tedds said she believes short-term rentals have been “inappropriately maligned as not having a role to play in communities,” adding they fill a need for certain people such as transient workers or people from rural communities visiting city centres for medical treatments.

“It’s not as simple (or) as straightforward as people want it to be. If you go out and ban short-term rentals, 5,000 housing units will not appear on the Calgary market. That’s not how it works.”

However, there are places where this narrative doesn’t hold: Canada’s mountain towns.

In Whistler, B.C., an eye-watering 35 per cent of the housing market is comprised of short-term rentals — by far the greatest proportion in the country. Behind it is Mont-Tremblant (16.4 per cent) and Canmore (15 per cent).

Canmore’s situation is uniquely created by the fact it has specific zoning for tourist homes. According to the Rocky Mountain Outlook , the Town of Canmore is considering a range of policies to relieve its acute housing crisis by taxing tourist homes at a commercial rate, removing a personal-use declaration option and allowing tourist homeowners to switch to a residential class.

It’s also considering a ban on future tourist homes.

The report notes the nature of mountain towns as tourist destinations “likely changes the approach to (short-term rentals) for policy makers and other stakeholders” as their local economies disproportionately rely on tourist rental activity.

One of the leading concerns in these towns, Tedds said, is the availability of affordable housing for workers in mountain towns. As a result, ski resorts are more frequently building staff accommodations to help the issue.

“The tourist town exists because of the tourists — but the tourists don’t get to have their fun if they don’t have workers,” she said.

mscace@postmedia.com
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