Lang said the decline in Airbnb listings in the City of Melbourne was part of a national trend<\/a>, with Sydney and Brisbane also dropping off, while the number of non-hosted listings rose sharply in holiday locations such as the Whitsundays, Noosa and the Barossa Valley.<\/p>\n While those places have all had short-stay rental accommodation for a long time, Lang said, Airbnb\u2019s emergence as a dominant platform on the market had coincided with a worsening housing shortage.<\/p>\n The number of non-hosted properties in the Bass Coast Shire, including the town of Inverloch, jumoed by 30 per cent from 2019 to 2023.Credit: Eddie Jim<\/p>\n \u201cFor some of these towns, housing has just become incredibly unaffordable and unavailable,\u201d she said. \u201cTourists can be great for your business, but some of those areas are hitting densities where it\u2019s difficult to get staff because it\u2019s so difficult to find housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Mornington Peninsula<\/a> Shire Mayor Anthony Marsh said Airbnb had changed the holiday rental landscape in the area, as relatively humble beach houses were being rented out by owners \u201cmaking an absolute killing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe get 8 million visitors a year \u2026 so there is, to some extent, a reliance on these holiday rentals. But Airbnb have changed it from the little shack that people might rent out in Blairgowrie over a couple of weeks to what\u2019s very much this commercial business model now.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n Marsh said many properties could potentially serve as affordable long-term rental accommodation, but owners had calculated that renting them out for short stays was more profitable.<\/p>\n \u201cThinking of say, Rye, I\u2019m sure if you jump on Airbnb and look at some of the houses, they\u2019re probably reasonably normal beach houses that are making an absolute killing during the week. But if they\u2019re on the rental market, that would be probably considered affordable, and I think that\u2019s where it\u2019s doing the biggest damage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/5d236f35db586a992889461794ebf34cc0221f15.jpeg\")
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