To combat shortage of rentals in the city, Vancouver passed a by law limiting short term rentals.

This ban does not affect individuals renting out their own place / principal residence, but affects businesses or individuals who own or rent our more than one property.

Vancouver’s real estate prices have been through the roof, and is now known as most un-affordable place to live in the world when it comes to purchasing real estate. On top of that, long term rental have extremely low vacancy as most of them are listed as short term.

Vancouver City Officials hope this by-law will free up some long term rental vacancy but they had no studies done / no hard evidence that this will fix the problem.

These regulations and AirBnB’s will be changed immediately after 2018 municple election!#vanre #vanpoli #bcpoli

Vision Vancouver requires an eye exam. https://t.co/CFNcDIX3SM

— Brette A. Mullins (@BretteMullins) November 14, 2017

AirBnb says that this is unaffair and that it might be taking the city to court.

“We really think it’s going too far,”

– Ms. Dagg, the public policy manager for Airbnb in Canada, said from Toronto

Vancouver by law will require $49 annual registration fee and the owner to be principal resident to be able to rent out his or her own place. The fine for non compliance? A steep $1,000 penalty.

Vancouver said that they will police AirBnb website to find and fine illegal listings.

Vancouver house prices soared in the last 10 or so years and average house price is now over $1 million dollars.

Ms. Dagg is pushing Airbnb in British Columbia to collect lodging tax like they do right now in Quebec, where 3.5% from each rental is collected and can be used by the government as they please. Maybe building more subsidized / public housing with that money instead of banning it outright?