Airbnb and Rental Markets : Evidence from Berlin

This article evaluates how two policy interventions in Berlin, Germany, have affected the supply of Airbnb listings in the city. We exploit this policy-induced variation to assess how Airbnb affects Berlin's rental market. Both interventions significantly reduced the overall number of Airbnb listings but affected professional hosts - defined either based on booking availability or on revenues - differentially. Using this quasi-exogenous variation in Airbnb supply, we show that the presence of Airbnb reduces the long-term rental supply. This effect is driven by professional hosts. We estimate that one additional nearby professional Airbnb listings crowds out 0.4 to 0.9 long-term rentals and increases the asked square-meter rent by 1.2 to 5.6 percent on average depending on the specification