Something in the Air
A GROWING number of Gold Coasters are renting out their dream homes through Airbnb to help pay their mortgages.
New research shows that 41 per cent of those who open up their houses on the peerto-peer accommodation network say it is to help them afford the property dream.
Chantelle Subritzky moves out of her $720,000 Tallebudgera cottage each week to accommodate strangers.
Thanks to Airbnb renters subsidising her mortgage, she has her sights set on becoming a property tycoon.
“My partner lives in Sydney,"she said.
“Every week I prepare the house for new renters and I move into his Queensland place.
“It is a lot of work but it is a means to an end. I feel with Airbnb you have a lot of control about who turns up and so far it has been a positive experience.
“It is a beautiful property in Tallebudgera on a big block and one day I would like to turn it into a place where people can come and stay and bring their horses.”
University of Queensland Business School research professor Sara Dolnicar has just released her findings on the psychology of having people rent your home.
“Tourists can live with lo- cals or in the houses of locals instead of staying in hotels,” she said.
“Airbnb’s success points to high demand due to attractive prices.
“Every night of every year, half a million people stay in Airbnb accommodation.”
Ms Dolnicar said the research found that many hosts simply enjoyed meeting visitors and showing them their local attractions.
“They get to meet people from around the world with- out travelling,” she said. The study found just over 40 per cent of people opened up their homes to pay for their dream home, 46 per cent to raise extra cash, 31 per cent for the social interaction and 20 per cent for the love of it. PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk will fly to London next month to officially kick off the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games baton relay at Buckingham Palace in the presence of the Queen – in a move that will see a parliamentary sitting week pushed back.
The trip will be bookended by trade missions in Singapore and India, where Ms Palaszczuk and five regional mayors will meet with the leaders of Adani, the company behind the Galilee Basin mega mine.
Ms Palaszczuk said the decision to move Parliament back a week would allow for the Opposition’s domestic violence legislation to be debated two months earlier. She said the Government’s Victims of Crime Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016, which also contains changes to protect domestic violence victims, would be debated in the same sittings.
“Parliament will now sit on March 21 to 23 rather than a week earlier and it will be able to deal with both pieces of legislation in that sitting,” she said.
A spokesman for Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls slammed the Premier’s decision, saying she “is running away from the state’s problems because the self-declared republican wants a photo op”.