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Comment by lm411 | Hacker News Reader

I lived in a small community / somewhat resort town on Vancouver Island a couple of years ago. Population less than 15000.

Typically there would be less than 3-4 residential long term rental units available in the whole town. And there were over 350+ AirBNB units in the town - mostly empty in the off seasons. Almost all condos, apartments, or laneway houses.

Many people unable to find housing... Families living in trailers, RV's, etc. Lots of single people living out of their cars. People with decent incomes.

There are a lot of causes for the housing crisis in Canada, but, AirBNB definitely plays a big role in the rental market.

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> And there were over 350+ AirBNB units in the town

Or about 4.6%? Right? Sounds reasonably OK for a resort town.

Sure, but, in such an extreme housing crisis it might be wise to adjust priorities so people have housing.

The town also has a massive NIMBY problem.

Come to Montreal! Our AirBnB listings peaked at about 0.025% of all apartments in 2018. If you still genuinely believe AirBnB is the problem where you live now.

I didn't say AirBNB was "the" problem. It does contribute in a significant way.

Have you seen the rental prices in Vancouver, or CRD region?

Sure I did. Also AirBnB peaked in Vancouver at 0.05% 5+ years ago of all condo stock. Thus I don't see how 0.05% of the all units can anyhow influence the market.

> Or about 4.6%? Right? Sounds reasonably OK for a resort town.

Or about 10,000% more vacant AirBnB units than long-term rental units. Sounds unreasonable for any town.

I bet if you got that city to get a permit to build a new condo, you need to spend shit ton of money and worst wait 6 months to get a permit, and at some point a neighbor blocks you because you are blocking a view or something. The problem is building, and in USA we have tons of land, we just some how don't let people to build homes

I generally agree with you, though within the particular context of small Canadian towns like the OP is discussion there's an additional issue that there's actually a dearth of investment and housing investment. In contrast to the vibrant cities like Vancouver where developers would love to build but they're blocked, in small towns there's often no developers, no builders, and no investment.

The remoteness and limited market of smaller towns can drive up the costs of creating new things.

In these cases of the lack of it's remarkably easier to simply buy a SFH and rent it out on Airbnb and I think that's how we get to these outcomes where there's seemingly tourist demand, but no one is creating anything new except trading around old SFHs.

In Canada the major issue is that zoning bylaws are generally 30 years old and so no one can do anything “as of right” which means that everyone has to go through a very long public engagement process and negotiation / shake down from the municipality to fund whatever the latest political desire is. So 6 months is, unfortunately, very very optimistic. Most of my developer friends spend 2-3 years and then still have to fight through the tribunals to get to build anything, even things ostensibly in line with what the city says it wants (like density around new rapid transit).

Would it Ladysmith by any chance? Just finished watching Resident Alien and that's the town used in the show. Beautiful place regardless.

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