Airbnb listings up 60 per cent in one year
Overseas trips have become a lot more economic for Thalia Kehoe Rowden of Wellington and her family since they started letting their house on Airbnb.
The three-bedroom house in Hataitai can accommodate up to seven paying guests, and rents for about $238 a night.
Kehoe Rowden said that over the three years that she and her husband had owned it, they had let it for three months of each year – and a full year while they were volunteering in Thailand.
‘‘It’s a great way to make use of the house when you’re away. Our house would be sitting there empty, it just seemed to totally make sense,’’ she said.
Demand is strong and the house is usually booked for the nights it is listed as available. Two-thirds of the visitors are international tourists. She said three couples could stay in the house for roughly the price they would pay for one hotel room.
Kehoe Rowden was initially worried about security. But she has now dealt with hundreds of guests and never had a problem. ‘‘We’ve only had good experiences.’’
She said other homeowners should consider doing the same, especially over Christmas, when demand was strong. ‘‘You can finance your summer holiday.’’
In her case, the income just helped meet her family’s overseas travel costs, she said. ‘‘But you could easily cover New Zealand travel.’’
It was common to charge a cleaning fee, Kehoe Rowden said, which could then be spent on hiring someone to handle the work required between guests.
Data from Airbnb shows the platform had year-on-year growth in listings of 61 per cent in New Zealand last year. There are now 37,600 Airbnb listings in total in this country.
In Auckland the number of listings grew by 71 per cent and, in Queenstown, 29 per cent.
More than half the New Zealanders surveyed were likely to use Airbnb when they travelled and 31 per cent were likely to share their own home. In Australia, that number was only one in five.
Airbnb head of public policy for Australia and New Zealand Brent Thomas said that from a global perspective, New Zealanders’ willingness to use the platform was high. That could be due to a history of owning holiday houses, and the relatively isolated nature of many holiday spots. Sites such as Bookabach and HolidayHouses had already been operating here before Airbnb launched.
Thomas said about threequarters of New Zealand’s Airbnb listings were outside the traditional hospitality areas, boosting local businesses.
New Zealand hosts earned an average $4200 a year from Airbnb. In Queenstown, typical earnings were $12,935 a year.
Queenstown is proposing a rule change that would limit short-term letting to 28 days a year.
The number of people willing to let their houses would grow as more people travelled using sharing platforms such as Airbnb, Thomas said.
Financial coach Hannah McQueen said the main reason people did not take up that potential income stream was the effort perceived to be involved, or security worries.
‘‘Mostly it’s because they can’t see how the inconvenience is worth it, as a couple of hundred dollars here or there doesn’t do much if you are inefficient with your finances. They need to fix their finances first so the inconvenience is what jumps them ahead or allows them to go on an extra holiday instead of the typical result of the money just getting sucked up into their situation with nothing really to show for it.’’