It’s Airbnb (and Stays etc etc) all the way in this week’s podcast (sorry!) as we discuss the implications of Jimmy’s belated discovery that the Sydney-only by-laws banning holiday lets only apply to investor-owned apartments.Yes, resident-owners and even tenants can list their flats on Airbnb and any of the other platforms (preferably those that don’t destroy fond memories with insipid renditions of Beatles songs) with a limit of 180 nights a year.Why would anyone let their own home to holiday guests, ask NSW policymakers?We try to explain that six months is just enough to make it worth retirees putting their stuff in storage while they cruise the oceans of the world. It also represents 52 long weekends a year, plus Christmas and New Year, to people who have somewhere else to stay during prime holiday rental periods.Later we chat about this story where an anti-holiday letting by-law was rescinded because a couple of clauses went just a bit too far.And Sue previews her article for Prestige Domain in the AFR where property finance experts ask the key question all Airbnb hosts should consider – is it really worth it?Finally, we look at the proposal to offer government top-up loans to first-time home owners against the equity in the property and why it has a whiff of pre-election promise from a government that can’t bear the thought of putting money into affordable housing (in case poor people take advantage, one assumes).That’s all in this week’s podcast.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 00:00I just realised, that we are tracking at about 31,000 downloads of this podcast.Sue 00:09Wow! That's amazing!Jimmy 00:10And it's partly because people are finding the new ones, and then going back through the library. We're getting about 80 listeners a day.Sue 00:22Wow, that's fantastic!Jimmy 00:23 About a year ago (just over a year ago), we were getting 80 listeners a week.Sue 00:27Wow, that's fantastic. I think people are much more interested in strata now, and lots of us are living in it, and lots of us are affected by the issues, maybe.Jimmy 00:36And I think more people are listening to podcasts.Sue 00:39Yes, of course.Jimmy 00:42In today's show, we will be talking a lot about Airbnb; I've got two or three very distinct approaches on that (including an Airbnb bylaw that has just been bounced by NCAT), and we're going to be talking about this plan to loan first-time homebuyers money against the equity of their house or apartment, which the New South Wales government is planning to do. A lot to talk about; we'd better crack on. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 01:20And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 01:23And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. I made a fundamental journalistic error, in the past year or so...Sue 01:44Really?Jimmy 01:44 Which I've only just realised, and the error was to assume something...Sue 01:50Which makes an arse of you and me...Jimmy 01:54No, we're not! An 'ass,' of you and me! The new laws that came in on short-term letting last month (and partly, earlier last year), allowing bylaws to be created in strata schemes... I thought that the two things were you couldn't prevent
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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.
