As a matter of interest…
Brisbane City Council has announced its 2022/23 budget with higher residential rates to apply to many short-term rentals. The Brisbane City Lord Mayor’s budget speech includes the following:
“As I mentioned earlier, the housing crisis is not just about a lack of affordable houses to buy, it’s also about residents, including key workers, facing a serious lack of affordable homes and apartments to rent.
One area where there’s now a pressing need for intervention is the issue of short-term rentals.
With the rental vacancy rate now at record lows, it’s incredibly hard for tenants to find affordable places to live with six or twelve month leases.
Short-term rentals may be convenient for tourists and visitors to Brisbane, but they throw up a minefield of issues.
The short-term rental trend, facilitated by well-known booking apps, removes homes from the long-term rental market.
To be clear – this contributes to supply shortages and increasing housing costs.
It creates an uneven playing field and jeopardises investment in purpose-built short-term accommodation, like hotels.
This is not a good scenario for a city that’s a decade away from hosting the biggest sporting event on the planet.
The short-term accommodation boom also increases compliance costs for Council, with homeowners across Brisbane suddenly living next door to homes and apartments that have become mini hotels overnight.
So today, I can announce owners who lease their property on the short-term market will now be required to pay their fair share.
We will be introducing new rating categories for transitory accommodation which will mean owners pay 50 per cent higher rates than equivalent non-owner-occupied residential properties.
For a property on the minimum rating level, that will work out to be almost $600 extra a year.
This amount is more consistent with commercial rates.
Properties that simply have a room to rent will be excluded.
However, properties that are listed for short-term rental for more than 60 days a year will be required to pay the higher amount of rates.
This will be progressively rolled out across Brisbane.
We will be encouraging owners to self-identify from the outset from July 1.
We will be encouraging members of the public to let us know if a property is being used for short-term rental purposes.
And we will be using online sources to identify properties.
I know some owners will not like this approach.
However, residential streets were not meant to be home to pseudo hotels, with different tenants coming and going every weekend.
It is my hope, instead of paying extra, many owners of short-term rentals will now be motivated to put their homes and apartments into the longer-term rental market.”
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