Do Short-Term Rentals Actually Cause the Housing Crisis What the Research Says

The meeting room at city hall was standing room only. Renters clutching printouts of soaring lease renewals. Hosts defending their right to operate. Advocates holding signs that read “Airbnb Steals Homes.” A city council member at the podium looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.

I’ve watched scenes like this play out in cities from Austin to Amsterdam. And every time, the same question hangs in the air: Is Airbnb actually to blame?

It’s the most polarizing debate in the short-term rental world. The emotional narrative runs hot. The political pressure is real. Barcelona is phasing out all STR licenses. New York City passed one of the most aggressive short-term rental restrictions in the world. France rewrote its entire rental tax code. Across the globe, governments are pointing at platforms like Airbnb as a primary driver of the housing affordability crisis.

But what does the research actually say? And more importantly, does banning short-term rentals actually fix anything?

I went looking for data, not talking points. Here is what I found.

First, Let’s Talk Scale

Before anything else, we need context. As of mid-2025, there were approximately 1.77 million short-term rental listings across the United States. Against a total US housing stock of roughly 147 million units, that represents about 1.2% of all housing.

That is not nothing. But it is also not the primary driver of a housing crisis affecting tens of millions of Americans.

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies documented in its 2024 report that half of all US renters are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on rent. The roots of that crisis run deep: decades of restrictive zoning, underfunded affordable housing programs, supply constraints that date back to the 1970s, and construction costs that have outpaced income growth for a generation.

When 1.2% of housing stock meets a decades-long structural deficit, attributing the crisis to that 1.2% requires some very careful math. That is not dismissal. That is proportion.

What the Research Actually Shows

The most-cited academic study on this question comes from researchers at California State University and the University of Southern California. Their analysis found that a 1% increase in Airbnb listings in a given zip code is associated with a 0.018% increase in rents and a 0.026% increase in home prices.

Read that again. A 1% increase in listings produces an 0.018% rent increase. That is a real effect. It is measurable. In tourist-heavy neighborhoods where STR concentration is high, the impact compounds. Research from Washington, D.C. found STRs responsible for between a 0.66% and 2.24% increase in single-family home prices in certain hotspot neighborhoods.

So the honest answer is: yes, short-term rentals do affect housing prices. The effect is real, localized, and meaningful in the highest-density markets.

It is also, in most contexts, modest relative to the broader forces driving the crisis.

The Reason Foundation’s analysis put it plainly: short-term rentals place some upward pressure on home prices, but that pressure is downstream of the more fundamental problem – land-use policies that restrict the supply of housing. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that government regulations alone account for 23.8% of the final selling price of new homes. That is a structural weight that 1.2% of housing stock cannot meaningfully offset, no matter how many Airbnb listings get banned.

Want to understand the regulatory landscape in your market? The StaySTRA STR Law tracker breaks down local ordinances and what they mean for hosts.

New York City’s Real-World Experiment

If you want to test the theory, New York City ran the experiment for us.

Local Law 18 went into effect in September 2023 and immediately became the strictest short-term rental regulation in any major US city. Hosts were required to register with the city, stay present during guest visits, and limit bookings to two guests maximum. The practical effect was swift: Airbnb listings in New York City dropped from more than 40,000 to approximately 3,200 – a decline of more than 90%.

If short-term rentals were a primary driver of high rents, what happened next should have been dramatic rent relief.

It wasn’t.

The median asking rent across NYC apartments rose 2.1% from October 2023 to October 2024. Manhattan hit a record median rent of $4,500 in February 2025 – up 6.4% year over year. Vacancy rates remained essentially unchanged. And in an ironic twist, hotel rates climbed roughly 6% in 2024 as visitors who would have stayed in short-term rentals had to find alternatives, with New York City recording an average daily hotel rate of $524.

Two years after the law took effect, the results remain contested. City officials point to successful enforcement. Airbnb and its coalition partners argue the data is clear: rents went up, not down, despite a 90% reduction in listings. Tenant advocates counter that the trend reflects broader market pressures and that direct causation is impossible to establish.

Both of those positions contain truth. Which is exactly the point.

For a deeper look at how the STR industry operates, check out our investigation into what property managers aren’t telling hosts.

Barcelona and the European Approach

Across the Atlantic, cities are moving more aggressively. Barcelona’s Mayor Jaume Collboni made headlines in 2024 when he announced the city would not renew any of the 10,000 tourist apartment licenses currently operating – effectively phasing out all short-term rentals by 2028.

In March 2025, Spain’s Constitutional Court upheld the plan. No new permits are being issued. The city is now in enforcement mode, auditing existing operators, and the stated goal is to return 10,000 apartments to the long-term housing market. The backdrop is stark: Barcelona’s residents have seen rents rise 62.1% over the past decade.

Spain also levied a 64 million euro fine against Airbnb in December 2025 for listing properties without valid licenses – the largest penalty against a platform of its kind in Europe.

Meanwhile, France enacted the Le Meur Law in November 2024, cutting the maximum rental days for principal residences from 120 to 90 per year, slashing tax incentives for STR income, requiring national registration of all listings by May 2026, and empowering municipalities to set hard quotas on tourist accommodations. The Library of Congress documented the full scope of the changes – this is not incremental reform. It is a structural reorientation of how France treats short-term rentals.

Whether these bans will deliver the housing relief promised is a story still being written. Barcelona’s experiment is younger than New York’s. The data will come.

The Honest Reckoning

Here is where I land after following this data as carefully as I can.

Short-term rentals do affect housing markets. The effect is real, statistically documented, and concentrated in specific neighborhoods and tourist markets. In places like Barcelona’s Eixample district or Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the conversion of long-term apartments to full-time tourist accommodations has meaningfully reduced housing supply for residents.

Acknowledging that is not anti-host. It is honest.

But the research also makes clear that banning short-term rentals does not solve a housing crisis rooted in supply constraints and decades of policy failure. New York’s experience is instructive. You can eliminate 90% of Airbnb listings and rents still go up. Because the problem was never primarily Airbnb.

The political appeal of targeting platforms is understandable. They are visible, profitable, and easy to regulate. They also make for a clear villain in a story that is actually far more complicated. Zoning reform is harder. Permitting reform is slower. Increasing housing supply requires years and political capital. Passing a short-term rental ban is faster and produces press releases.

Smart hosts understand this distinction. They know that the regulatory pressure is not going away – because the housing crisis itself is not going away. And they navigate it by staying informed, operating in compliance, and understanding their local market deeply.

Our guide to the short-term rental tax loophole is one example of how informed hosts operate strategically inside the rules rather than guessing at them.

What Hosts Should Actually Do With This

The regulatory environment is tightening everywhere. Not because STRs caused the housing crisis, but because the housing crisis created political pressure, and platforms became the most convenient target. That distinction matters for how you operate.

First, know your local regulation status precisely. Not roughly. Precisely. The difference between a licensed operation and an unlicensed one is increasingly the difference between a viable business and a forced exit. The StaySTRA STR Law tracker is a starting point for understanding what your jurisdiction requires.

Second, track your market’s data. If your city is debating restrictions, the conversation is happening now, not after the ordinance passes. Hosts who show up with real numbers – occupancy rates, revenue contributions, neighborhood impact – are taken more seriously than hosts who show up angry.

Third, understand that the story is not over. Barcelona’s ban may not produce the housing relief promised. New York’s reform conversation is already building. The evidence matters, and it is accumulating.

The hosts who will still be operating in five years are the ones who engaged with this complexity instead of dismissing it.

We do our best to keep our reporting accurate and up to date, but situations evolve and we are only human. Always verify current details directly with local officials and sources before making decisions.

Know Your STR Market

Knowledge is power. Our free STR Analyzer pulls real market data so you can see what properties are actually earning in your area – the kind of numbers that matter when regulations are changing and you need to make informed decisions fast.

For market-level data including active rental counts, average daily rates, occupancy trends, and neighborhood breakdowns, the StaySTRA Analyzer gives you the picture your local council members are probably not looking at.

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