Examining the Impact of Short-Term Rentals on Housing Prices in Washington, DC: Implications for Housing Policy and Equity

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs on-demand short-term rentals (STRs) grow popular with the rise of sharing platforms like Airbnb, regulations for the STR market have become the center of a debate among policymakers, housing interest groups, the hotel and lodging industry, and STR platforms. Washington, DC, the nation’s capital and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States, is on the front lines of legalizing and regulating the STR business. With the heated policy debate over whether STRs disrupt the rental housing market in DC, a concrete discussion about what STRs impose on the owner housing market is left out. Using web-scraped data from Airbnb and property-level data from the city, I investigated the net impact of STRs on single-family property prices through a series of hedonic analyses. The results suggest that having Airbnb establishments in the neighborhood can significantly inflate property prices. Because of the uneven spatial market penetration of STRs, such price impact could inequitably affect low-income homebuyers and add another hurdle to resolving the housing affordability issue faced by policymakers in Washington, DC.