A new study by business consultancy EY has found that Airbnb has little to no significant impact on the price and availability of housing in the UK and that over 95% of house price increases can be attributed to factors unrelated to short-term rentals, such as increases in income and inflation. 

The short lets platform says it is widely acknowledged that the UK has failed to build enough homes to keep pace with demand pressures for years, with independent estimates finding that the UK has a shortfall in housing supply of around 5m homes. Meanwhile, Airbnb data has found that the majority of hosts in the UK list one space and 40% say that the extra income helps them to afford their home. 

The EY study, which was commissioned by Airbnb, is the first of its kind to analyse the economic footprint of travel on Airbnb, as well as reviewing its impact on housing affordability at national, regional, and local levels. The report was based on a quantitative assessment of Airbnb data alongside information collected from publicly available sources.

It claims Airbnb guests delivered significant economic benefits for communities across the UK:

• Travel on Airbnb generated £5.7 billion of gross value added (GVA) and supported over 75,000 jobs in the UK in 2023;

• This is the equivalent to £200 per year (£17 per month) per UK household;

• London had the highest GVA impact at £1.5 billion, followed by the South West (£855 million), Scotland (£774 million), and Wales (£354 million).

Entire homes listed on Airbnb account for less than 0.7% of total dwellings in the UK and the average Airbnb host rents their home for less than three days per month, indicating that the majority of hosts live in the homes they list on the platform.  

Entire home listings on Airbnb that are hosted for 90 nights or more per year account for just 0.17% of the housing stock.

Around 95% of the change in rents and house prices from 2015 to 2022 is due to other factors unrelated to the growth of short-term lets. Where there is a correlation between Airbnb availability and housing costs, this minor impact is driven by a small number of geographic areas, while the vast majority of regions show no relationship.

GVA impact outweighs any impacts on housing in every country, region, and local authority, including those where there is a relationship between Airbnb availability and housing affordability, with most of the UK showing no correlation between the rise in active Airbnb listings and affordability.

The economic benefits exceed the impact on housing costs in every nation, every region, and every local authority considered in this report. 

The economic benefit of Airbnb-linked travel (equivalent to £17/month per household) is double any possible impact on housing affordability (£8/month per household) that could be related to the growth of listings on Airbnb.

The modelling suggests that growth in Airbnb is associated with an improvement in rental and house price affordability in York, for example, and an improvement in rental affordability in Wales. This could be potentially due to Airbnb boosting local incomes and enabling more efficient use of the housing stock.