The Boston University Initiative on Cities and the School of Hospitality Administration released a new brief examining how Boston’s short-term rental (STR) regulations are working in practice. The brief summarizes key insights on how the rules have reshaped the size and characteristics of the city’s STR market, as well as what the data reveal about host compliance and ongoing enforcement challenges.
Key Findings
- On average, the introduction of regulations led to a 56% reduction in STR listings in Boston. When focusing specifically on entire home offers (including both STR and mid-term rentals), the decline amounted to 46% across Airbnb and Vrbo.
- 3,000 STR listings were removed between the passage of the bill in June 2018 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Professional hosts and management agencies remain dominant players: they still account for 76% of STR supply.
- Among the 81 listings classified as institutional or business stays, only four complied with the mandated minimum rental period.
- Just 41% of listings displayed an STR license that could be matched to the city’s official registry.
- The reactive nature of investigations and the city’s limited enforcement capacity may disproportionately affect “amateur” landlords.
- There was a widespread perception of “uneven treatment” and a shared belief that larger players on Airbnb and other platforms frequently violated the rules among hosts interviewed by this study.
- For many landlords, significant financial incentives to operate STRs remain, particularly in gentrifying and MBTA-served areas of the city.
