All posts tagged: Airbnbs

Spanish holiday hotspot overwhelmed by tourist rentals as furious locals fight back | World | News

Spanish holiday hotspot overwhelmed by tourist rentals as furious locals fight back | World | News

Spanish locals have issued a rallying cry as “historic” shops and buildings are closing up to make space for more holiday rentals. Residents of Costa del Sol, particularly Malaga, have vented their frustration after nearly 40 shops, bars or other commercial sites were granted permission to be turned into holiday rentals in the span of a year. It comes amid a housing crisis for young Spaniards, with many millions unable to afford to live in larger cities – let alone purchase property there. A picture of a once popular noodles bar turned tourist rental went viral after Malagueño Fran Campos shared it with the caption: “Malaga’s new reality.” He went on to share more pictures detailing how the city had changed over time. Mr Campos argued that “iconic” buildings were being wiped from existence, to be replaced with more spaces for tourists. He said under one picture: “These were the headquarters of the Neighborhood Association, then an embroidery workshop and now some tourist apartments.” A legendary dance clothing store, named Lola Denis, also faced the chopping block after 36 years …

Will Airbnb’s co-founder build your next home?

Will Airbnb’s co-founder build your next home?

Welcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Not long ago, I wondered whether startups could help solve the U.S. housing crisis. Now there’s a new name in town: Airbnb spinout Samara, which just secured fresh funding. As for Dig, it got acquired not long after I started digging into its category: data security posture management. — Anna The Airbnb playbook With a shortage of at least 3.8 million dwellings, the U.S. housing crisis isn’t showing many signs of improvement. Comparing the situation to what it was just one year ago, VC firm Gutter Capital noted that it even worsened in some respects — chiefly, investment. “[I]nvestor interest in the housing market, previously chilled, has frozen over,” managing partner James Gettinger wrote. “While rising interest rates were no match for the undersupply of housing, they were more than enough to scare away venture capital investors. We’ve been told by proptech funds that …

Airbnb’s average home prices have gone up, so now it’s refocusing on rooms to give users more affordable alternatives

Airbnb’s average home prices have gone up, so now it’s refocusing on rooms to give users more affordable alternatives

Airbnb started out of an idea of renting out spare beds and rooms in private homes to people as an affordable alternative to hotels, but as it has scaled it’s spent years going upmarket from that, evolving into a wider platform for any kind of private accommodation, with a big emphasis on travelers taking entire homes, not just rooms. That’s helped the company land its first profitable year in 2022, but there is a looming problem: Airbnb homes are getting more expensive to rent, with average prices up 36% since 2019 — and with the current state of the economy, travelers are looking for more affordable alternatives again. So today, Airbnb is changing tack: it’s taking the wraps off a new single-room rental option, making it once again a more prominent part of the search flow for would-be travelers. “Everyone’s talking about the economy. And, you know, we know that people want to travel,” said co-founder and chief strategy officer Nate Blecharczyk in an interview. “We just also know that affordability is on people’s minds. …