The spread of Airbnb and its impact on the housing market: some evidence from the Italian case

The rapid spread of the short-term rental market, especially through the Airbnb platform, has produced significant impacts on some urban contexts, which is why it has been the subject of much criticism. Among the central issues is that of conflict with permanent residence, both in qualitative (noise, insecurity, etc.) and quantitative terms (residential property values, contraction of the already scarce supply of long-term rentals). Depending on the relative weight of the various externalities, which are more or less positive, we can expect that these may depress property values if the liveability of the neighbourhood is negatively affected, or that the increased demand for short-let properties will be passed on in the cost of residential housing, making housing less affordable. In any case, the increasing emergence of spillover effects has placed cities, where this type of supply is particularly present, in front of new regulatory challenges. Hence the need to explore this issue in depth with the support of quantitative evidence.

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