Airbnb imposes limit on London home rentals

Move comes amid fears over housing shortages

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Dec 3, (AP): Airbnb will start enforcing limits to private home rentals in two popular European cities on the home-sharing platform, London and Amsterdam, the company said Thursday.

The move comes amid complaints from some cities that the booming house sharing sector can lead to illegal hotels and contribute to housing shortages.

In London, Airbnb said it will “introduce new and automated limits to help ensure entire home listings in London are not shared for more than 90 days,” unless hosts prove they have permission to share their space for longer. The new measures will be in place by spring 2017.

The Dutch capital and the online rental service said that they will work together to ensure that home owners can only rent out their properties for a maximum of 60 days per year.

Amsterdam had introduced its limit earlier, but Airbnb said that from Jan. 1 its site will introduce automated tools to ensure homes aren’t listed for more than 60 days a year unless the owners have a license.

“A home should remain a home,” Amsterdam alderman Laurens Ivens said in a statement.

Approach

“With this new approach we are showing that working together with platforms such as Airbnb gives the city a new and efficient weapon to tackle illegal hotels,” he added.

Airbnb’s General Manager for Northern Europe, James McClure, said, “We want to be good partners for everyone in the city and ensure home sharing grows responsibly and sustainably.”

Airbnb says a typical host in Amsterdam earns 3,800 euros ($4,041) by sharing their space for 28 nights a year. In London, a typical Airbnb

Presenting its ninth report on “risks and vulnerabilities in the EU banking sector”, the EBA pointed to “high levels of non-performing loans (NPLs) and sustained low profitability” as being the main risks.

But it said that overall, the 131 banks had “further strengthened their capital position, allowing them to continue the process of repair” against a backdrop of high volatility in funding markets.

The regulator noted that the NPL ratio for the assessed banks as set against total loans had decreased overall to 5.4 percent in the second half of 2016 from 6.5 percent at the end of 2014.

“While there are signs of potential improvements, asset quality is still weak compared to historical figures and other regions,” the EBA said.

“Material differences persist in asset quality across countries, with more than one third of EU jurisdictions showing NPL ratios above 10 percent.”

“Further gradual improvements in asset quality are expected by banks and market analysts” but will depend on how the risk posed by NPLs is addressed, the EBA added.

The EBA’s figures showed that the level of bad loans in the Italian banks surveyed was at 16.4 percent, well above the European average.

The figure was below the level of Greece (47 percent) and Portugal (20 percent) but still well above the likes of Spain at six percent.

France was at four percent and Germany at 2.7 percent, confirming the overall good health of their banking systems.

Italy’s third-biggest lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) was considered in a poor position, with a bad loans at 33.3 percent.

All eyes are now on Italy, where Prime Minister Matteo Renzi heads into a make-or-break constitutional referendum this weekend insisting everything is still to play for in his fight to hold on to power.

Economically, the biggest concern is that post-referendum political instability could scupper Italy’s efforts to resolve a bad loans crisis in the banking sector and spark turmoil across the eurozone.

Italian banking stocks have halved in value this year and government borrowing costs have edged higher in the run-up to the vote.

The EBA recommended tackling the problem of bad debts by mobilising the regulators, implementing structural reforms and developing a secondary market that could ease the sale of particular loan portfolios.

In this file photo, a woman uses a computer to visit home rental website Airbnb, in Madrid. Barcelona city hall said today it would fine home rental websites Airbnb and rival HomeAway 600,000 euros ($635,000) each for marketing

lodgings that lacked permits to host tourists. (AFP)

host earns 3,500 pounds ($4,408 ) by sharing their space for 50 nights a year.

Since the company launched in 2008, when the co-founders invited travelers to sleep on an air mattress in their San Francisco loft, Airbnb has grown to be one of the world’s most valuable private startups by collecting fees when private hosts rent out accommodations listed on the site.

But it also has run into problems with city fathers and local residents concerned by the rapid rise in rentals.

Last week, Barcelona authorities said they would fine Airbnb and another rental site, HomeAway, 600,000 euros each for offering lodging that doesn’t have the necessary permits.

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau told Catalunya Radio that while tourism was a positive asset for the Spanish city, it had grown too much and was denying locals access to housing.