A growing share of new homes on Airbnb are year-round rentals owned by hosts who never live in them. These rentals now surpass private rooms inside a house occupied by the host, one of Airbnb’s traditional offerings, according to company data for a week’s worth of listings from June obtained by The Information.
This shift towards “professional” hosts—real estate investors or property management firms that own homes rented out full-time—symbolizes how Airbnb’s growth is evolving. Professionals are becoming as important as mom-and-pop hosts, a shift that puts Airbnb in further competition with Booking.com and Expedia’s HomeAway.
