Latest / STR Unpacked / Valencia just did something no other European city has done. It didn't cap STR's by nights.
Transcript
- Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short term rental bulletin. And this is a story that I think is genuinely interesting and I would really love to hear people's opinions on this. So Valencia has just done something that neither European city has done. It hasn't capped short term rentals any kind of number. ⁓ capped them actually by population. ⁓ here's a new formula approved this month. Holiday homes cannot exceed 2 % of total housing stock in any neighborhood. ⁓ total tourist accommodation, hotels, apartments, rentals combined cannot exceed 8 % of registered residents in that district. And only 15 % of holiday accommodation can sit on the ground floor. So I think that's really interesting, right? Because most regulation that we have been talking about on this channel for a while now includes capping nights. So we've got 30 in Amsterdam recently gone down to 15, 19 in Vienna, 100 20 in Paris or I think Paris has just gone down to 90. Valencia is capping density so that's a completely different lever and it ties supply directly to who actually lives there. So as a neighborhood loses residents it automatically loses short-term rental capacity. It's the first regulation I've seen that builds in its own ratchet and this isn't happening in isolation we've talked about this before. Portugal's licences have fallen from 126,000 to just under 90,000 and Lisbon's lost 40 % of its permits. Italy is raising tax on second properties to 26%. Milan is banning lockboxes on public land and EU-wide data sharing regulation goes live in 30 days time. Every one of these rules is a target, is a different pressure point. Nice tax, physical data. Valencia just added density. So if you operate in Europe, the question isn't if you'll be regulated. It's which lever hits you first. But on this story, particularly, I am very interested to hear what people's opinions are because this is the, in my opinion, best form of regulation that ties the actual issue of residents and tourists within those communities. the concern of becoming overpopulated within those communities, it actually directly addresses that. And I think that's a really, really interesting point. So please, please let me know what you think on this. ⁓ And I'll see you tomorrow.