WEALTH March 13, 2026 0 Comments

Why Are Airbnb Listings Exploding to Four Times More Than Traditional Rentals? The Untold Investment Opportunity Inside!

Ever wondered what happens when your neighbor’s holiday rental listing starts outnumbering the available homes for long-term rent in your entire town? Well, buckle up — that’s exactly the tangled web Ireland finds itself caught in right now. According to a fresh dive by Threshold, the national housing charity, short-term lets on Airbnb have ballooned to over four times the number of homes offered on the traditional rental market. It’s like the housing market is locked in a bizarre game of hide-and-seek, where families looking for a place to live are left seeking needles in a haystack of tourist pads and second homes. Sure, building more houses seems like the easy fix, right? But the reality check here is brutal: protecting existing homes for long-term residents is the real game changer, especially when homelessness and affordability crises loom large. So how do you untangle a housing market that seems to cater more to weekend tourists than permanent communities? Let’s unpack the data, the drama, and the regulations—or lack thereof—that shape this modern housing saga. LEARN MORE.

There are over four times more homes available on short-term letting site Airbnb than can be rented on the private market, raising concerns that housing supply is being constrained, writes Jamies McCarron.

National housing charity Threshold has released a new analysis comparing listings on Airbnb and rental site Daft.ie, which found that there are over 8,600 second homes advertised for short-term let across Ireland, compared to approximately 2,100 homes available nationwide in the private rental market.

In Kerry, only one out of every 30 suitable properties was available for longterm rent, with just 33 homes on Daft.ie compared to over 1,000 short-term lets.

Meanwhile, it was found that Clare had 532 short-term lets and 19 rental listings (a ratio of 28:1) and Donegal had 662 short-term lets versus 27 homes to rent (24:1).

Threshold stated that there are “communities at risk of being hollowed out” as families have nowhere to live while hundreds of properties may sit largely unused for much of the year outside tourist season.

The charity also warned that the shortage of housing cannot be solved simply by building new homes, but also by “protecting existing homes for long-term use, particularly during a worsening homelessness and affordability crisis”.

The data only analysed homes that could otherwise be lived in if they were placed on the rental market, excluding properties not suitable for long-term renting such as cabins, chalets, barns and campervans, or homes that showed signs of being owner-occupied.

Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said the imbalance between short-term and long-term rentals was “deeply frustrating, but not a surprise”.

The TD said: “Nobody has a problem with a short-term letting in high-amenity tourist areas when it’s being provided by people who live in and are from those communities.

“The problem is that in tourist towns and larger villages, people who are desperately needed to work in the tourism industry can’t afford to live anywhere.

“In 2019, the Government introduced regulations to try and curb commercial short-term letting in urban areas that had a high demand for rental accommodations, but here we are seven years on and we still don’t have proper enforcement of those regulations.”

As of last May, local authorities had received just 426 planning applications for change-of-use amounting to approximately 1.3% of short-term lets, suggesting the vast majority of non-compliant shortterm lets are not being enforced against.

Airbnb — Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said the imbalance between short-term and long-term rentals was “deeply frustrating, but not a surprise”. Photo:Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie

Threshold stated that it welcomed the new register of short-term lets coming into effect in May, but said this would not return homes to long-term use unless it is backed by enforcement.

The charity’s chief executive, John Mark McCafferty, said: “We look forward to working with the Government on strengthening enforcement of shortterm lets regulation to ensure communities thrive and families can find longterm homes.”