Housing in some of the Washington, D.C. areas has become more pricey as a result of the operating of home-sharing services such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway, according to a recent research paper.
Home prices have increased more than five percent in some D.C. neighborhoods, it was found in the study conducted by Zhenpeng Zou, who is a doctoral student in the Urban and Regional Planning and Design Program at the University of Maryland.
He is also a research assistant at the National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland.
Zou examined how Airbnb and other similar companies affected housing prices in the District between the years of 2015 and 2017.
In neighborhoods popular with tourists like downtown D.C., Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan and Foggy Bottom, the price hike was over five percent.
According to the researcher, places predominantly populated by minority groups (Shaw, Trinidad, Capitol Hill and Columbia Heights) are likely to be greatly impacted in terms of the ability for the first-time homebuyers to find a single-family property.
Based in San Francisco, Airbnb allows hosts to accommodate guests with short-term lodging and tourism-related activities. It receives commissions from every booking.