Airbnb removes more than three quarters of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation

Rental platform Airbnb has removed more than 80 percent of its existing advertisements in Amsterdam after the introduction of a landlord registration obligation. This is apparent from a poll by the municipality of Amsterdam, where de Volkskrant write about Monday. On October 1, the day it went into effect, Airbnb removed more than 13,700 listings from tenants without a registration number from its website. In total, the company still rents out about three thousand homes in Amsterdam.

The total supply of advertisements in the city also decreased: from 18,715 to 4,128. Airbnb’s ads make up the bulk of that. Expedia lost nearly three quarters of the ads, Tripadvisor about 20 percent and VRBO just over half. Only the number of Booking.com advertisements rose slightly, from 203 to 252. The municipality has not yet provided an explanation for this increase.

https://www.ruetir.com/2021/10/18/airbnb-removes-more-than-three-quarters-of-advertisements-in-amsterdam-after-registration-obligation/

It sounds like booking.com is not removing unregistered listings. I think the same thing happened in Boston with them. Boston was the first city (in the US) to win a lawsuit requiring Airbnb to actually remove the listings that were no longer legal. Prior to Boston, cities would make registration rules but Airbnb just left them up and the host would just deal with it if they got caught.

Waiting to see what happens in my state come November 1st, when registrations come into effect.
It took 7 years to get this happening.
Sydney will have 180 night limit.
Byron Bay is still arguing over 90 night limit.
It has been interesting to read about all the schemes to get around these limits.

Possibly because they require you to be registered in the first place. In Andalucía you need a “VFT” number to list with them.

Airbnb delisted tens of thousands of properties in Andalucía when registration became compulsory, four or so years ago, so this doesn’t surprise me.

JF

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So what did those hosts do? And the guests who had existing reservations? I assume the hosts converted to long term rentals as they had no other option besides operating illegally. That would be soul-crushing.

I think that’s correct. We always needed to provide permit details to Booking.com. Never an issue for us as we have always had a permit.

There is also a requirement here not to host more than four people in a property. Things might change but Airbnb doesn’t seem to be policing that yet (although again happily not an issue for us) even in the reduced number of listings.

Frankly, speaking as a local living onsite and following all the rules, this is a good development for us professionally and personally

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Sorry @JohnF

I meant to include your quote :slight_smile:

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Except for in places that don’t have any registration. They didn’t have any in Boston prior to the regulation I referred to, no one was registered so no one in Boston who signed up for Booking.com was registered. From what I understand, Boston had an issue with getting them to enforce the new registration requirements (drop unregistered listings).