Airbnb: '10-12 flats' emptying whole blocks, according to a forum user

The Airbnb cancer: whole blocks turned into tourist accommodation

A single owner with ten or twelve tourist flats. That is the detail that keeps coming up when Airbnb’s impact on cities is debated, according to a forum user: not a landlord with one spare room, but a concentrated portfolio that, in their view, empties a residential block. For those who defend this thesis, the same platform that multiplies accommodation supply reduces residential supply. The result, according to several versions in circulation, is not just more expensive housing: it is a neighbourhood losing its lifelong residents.

One of the theses goes beyond price. It argues that tourist rentals create a sterile environment that makes it harder for those who want to live permanently to put down roots. The constant turnover of visitors, they argue, replaces community with an anonymous flow.

Airbnb: the 10-12 flats that, according to a forum user, empty whole blocks

The recurring case is that of the owner who buys four flats in the same building and turns them into tourist accommodation. Those who defend this thesis say they know people with ten or twelve Airbnb flats who have completely transformed entire blocks. The complaints are not only about price: noise, safety issues, dirt and waste in shared areas.

The criticism also targets the quality of that tourism, described as low-cost and uncontrolled. The complaint, they insist, is not against the visitor, but against a model that pushes residents out of the city centre.

Are house prices rising only where there is tourism?

Here consensus breaks down. Not every price rise has Airbnb behind it. In Lugo, Teruel or La Rioja, flats are also getting more expensive and there is no mass tourism to explain it, a forum user objects. It is the question that unsettles: if the problem were only the platform, those provinces should not be rising.

The rebuttal comes in the form of communicating vessels. If Madrid becomes saturated and there is no housing, pressure shifts to smaller cities. Tourism would be the trigger and residential scarcity the mechanism that spreads the blow across the rest of the country.

Yes to tourism, but in hotels: the alternative proposal

Against tourist rentals, part of the argument advocates hotels. Tourism yes, but in quality hotels. The recipe includes lowering requirements and making construction permits more flexible to build more hotel beds and recover the flats currently dedicated to holiday rentals, without reducing the arrival of visitors.

The consistency of those who criticise Airbnb

The conversation drifts towards double standards. It is suspected that many of those who protest against the platform use it just the same when they travel. The uncomfortable question is where those leading the criticism stay.

With blocks full of tourist flats, the doubt remains as to who really lives in city centres today.