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The city of Cambridge last year wrote up and enacted regulation to limit the proliferation of Airbnb to help control the housing stock. The regulation says that only owner-occupied or owner-adjacent units (in 2, 3 or 4 family homes) can be rented out as STRs. This was done with some fanfare and some people signed up and went through the process of getting their units inspected and registered. I am in support of this process, as I think that investors buying up properties for the sole purpose o converting them into STRs is damaging to the fabric of a city. However, turns out I am in the vast minority of Airbnb hosts in this city, as the compliance to this rule is approximately 10% according to my sources within city government. Regulation has no teeth, and is unenforceable.
OK- so now the state is imposing a tax (5.7% state + 6% city + 3% community + 2.75% Convention center ) which totals a hefty 18% tax. But, the only hosts who are going to be paying this tax are the 10% that have registered and play by the rules, whilst the remainder will get a price advantage because they are not burdening their guests with the 18% tax.
Wondering if this community has any ideas on how to handle this situation either by:
Unregistering from the city database (not entirely serious suggestion)
Figuring out how to convince the city to enforce the rules that they have laid out and leveling the playing field.
I 'm assuming by now you have noticed that Airbnb is collecting taxes on all Massachusetts listings, even those that are illegal.
Enforcement was always the missing piece from Cambridge regulations. I think they were hoping that the framework Massachusetts created would solve our enforcement issues. Have you heard whether this is the case?
I know that the Boston regulations will actually be enforced starting on December 1, 2019. At least, the Boston hosts have received email from Airbnb that their listings will be dropped if they are not legally registered in Boston by December 1.
I also know that Airbnb recently required that I give them my Cambridge registration number but they did not indicate what would happen if the registration number was not provided or what would happen if the number entered was not a valid Cambridge registration number (I’ve seen one listing that is clearly illegal with a number that is not in the proper format).
Have you heard anything more about Cambridge enforcement of our STR regulations?
I don’t live in Boston but this is indeed a problem. Hosts claim exemptions they aren’t entitled to, they flat out lie and say they are legal even if they aren’t and so on. Airbnb doesn’t care but they can provide listing information to cities and that’s what they will probably be forced to do in more places.
I was in your beautiful city during the summer. We stayed in Newton…I think and hope it was a legal Airbnb.
@carolynfuller
I might be mistaken, but the registration number that Airbnb asked for was the one associated with MassTax Connect. Did I get that wrong? Also, is Airbnb now publishing said number on the listings?
In terms of enforcement, the City of Cambridge has done nothing. I think they are disincentivized to act on enforcement as they are now collecting 3% tax on each Airbnb stay. I am genuinely disappointed in the lack of interest in solving the problem of illegal listings. It ends up making things more difficult for legal listings by both increasing competition, but also making the Airbnb impact appear to be much worse than it should be.
Your stay in Newton was legal. Newton’s regulations do not go into effect until January 2020.
Boston’s regulations require that Airbnb enforce them which is why Airbnb sued Boston. They settled in favor of Boston this summer. A city has to be prepared to go to court when they pass laws that require the platforms to do the enforcement.
Airbnb requested both the MassTaxConnect certification number (in mid October) and the Cambridge registration number within the last couple of weeks.
My Cambridge registration number is now shown on my two listings under the “Hosted by …” section, right above my response rate and response time.
Very few listings have the number. In fact, I think the only listing I found with the number was clearly an illegal listing! So I’m not sure what the impact will be. I just know that from the first day Cambridge started talking about regulating STRs, I knew enforcement was going to be the sticking point. It was a huge issue in San Francisco when Cambridge first began discussions on regulations but since then, San Francisco has solved the enforcement issue. Not sure how they did it is good to know that they did.
I did forward to my contact in Cambridge Inspectional Services, the Airbnb Boston email indicating all Boston listings with a minimum stay of less than one month had to have a valid Boston registration number by Dec 1 or be dropped from the platform. I’m hoping that Cambridge was able to use that email as leverage with Airbnb to get them to voluntarily cooperate with Cambridge. The fact that Airbnb requested a registration number from me is, at least, a sign we are moving in the right direction.
