Are short-term rentals making it harder to buy a home in Macon? What experts think
It’s increasingly expensive to purchase or rent homes across the country. Middle Georgia is no different.
There are plenty of reasons for this, from a limited supply to changes in consumer behavior to the pandemic impact on the availability and cost of supply and labor. Do short-term rental properties, often rented through online platforms like AirBNB and VRBO, impact the market?
The short answer is no, at least for now, according to local real estate agents. A number of Macon realtors said that they haven’t yet seen any negative relationship between the short-term rental explosion and the buyer’s housing market.
“I haven’t seen that at all in my experience yet,” said Anna Roberts, owner of Rivoli Realty. “While we don’t deal with Airbnbs, we haven’t seen effects from them in our market.”
The Airbnb market has been growing both nationally and locally. The Wall Street Journal reported record highs and spikes in short-term rental demand in 2022 despite higher gas prices and the continuing effects of the pandemic. Macon has seen an increase in Airbnb purchases, as well as more buyers paying higher prices to turn a house into an Airbnb, according to multiple local realtors.
One realtor says that she hasn’t seen Airbnbs have a direct negative impact on renting, but that they do have some relation to the housing shortage.
“I don’t see that it’s affected long-term rentals at all, negatively,” said Laura Kostovetsky, a broker with Rivoli Realty. “But some people do have to stay in them because there’s nothing else available to rent.”
Kostovetsky says that the people that are forced to stay in short-term rentals while they await an opening elsewhere are usually people who have pets that can’t be brought to a hotel room. As a result, people have to pay high prices while they look for a place to stay for the long term.
“That’s because of the selling, as soon as a tenant is out, the owner is looking to sell,” Kostovetsky said. “The prices are so high that it becomes more valuable to sell immediately than it is to rent over time.”
Another Macon agent said that while he hasn’t seen an immediate link between the two markets, there’s a potential competition between potential homeowners and Airbnb runners.
“That could definitely happen, there would be competition there,” Joe Adams said of a market duel between buyers looking for a place to live and buyers who intend to use homes as Airbnbs. “Airbnb owners may be willing to pay more and end up creating competition with people who want to live in the house.”
Kostovetsky described a rental that indicated the dire situation on the market: a property renting at the rate of $2,800 a month that was snapped up nearly the instant it was listed.
“They didn’t even want to come out and see it, they just wanted it,” she said. “That’s how big the demand is.”
While it hasn’t happened yet, some research shows that with a demand this significant, short-term rentals like Airbnbs could impact Macon’s market very soon.
Forbes reported in 2020 that the so-called “Airbnb effect” was contributing to rising housing prices in major cities. The Forbes article cited another study by the Social Science Research Network, which claimed that a 1% increase in Airbnbs led to an increase in both housing and rental prices.
Has that changed since 2020? The Airbnb market continued to grow rapidly since research on its negative effects ramped up in 2020, and Middle Georgia continues to struggle with increased prices and a shortage of properties. The travel research site Travel Noire published a story earlier this month that used New York City’s market as a case study to show that Airbnbs are still straining an already high-cost real estate market.
