There are calls for greater restrictions on homes being made available via Airbnb and similar platforms as vacancy rates in Perth plummet.

The debate has fired up as Australian cities grapple with tight rental markets, and try to balance tourist demand for short stays with increasing demand for somewhere to live and call home.

As the rental vacancy rate drops below 1 per cent in Perth, a new kind of property development marketed to users and providers of short stay accommodation is being established opposite popular Leighton Beach in North Fremantle.

Australian Development Capital director Adam Zorzi said the concept was about flexibility, and the block had government support.

"The motivator here has been to create a product that people can buy and live in, they can buy and rent out long stay or they can buy and rent out in the short stay market," he said.

"The development was ultimately agreed by us with Development WA, and also then approved by the City of Fremantle."

Mr Zorzi said Fremantle Council recognised that short stays played a significant role in the area, which was a premier tourism destination.

"We by no means see this as significant competition for the hotel industry, it's just an alternative," he said.

"One thing that's happened on the back of COVID is that there's been a trend towards travellers wanting to stay in a place that's got a bit more space and so this caters for those people."

It's estimated there are about 10,000 short-stay properties in WA, comprising more than 4 per cent of the entire rental market.

Fears Airbnbs will worsen rental crisis

Welfare advocates, like Shelter WA CEO Michelle Mackenzie, say short-stay accommodation was being established at the expense of long-term rental properties.

"We know we've got a rental crisis in WA, a housing affordability crisis, and the more Airbnbs that go on the market, the less there are available for people in need," she said.

"People are doing it really tough, families can't find places to rent and places they need to live, close to schools, close to their work, and we do know in particular regions such as the South West, in tourist hot spots, it's just dire.

Welfare advocates in Hobart recently reported that short stays made up 5.65 per cent of properties in the rental market; another study this year suggested the figure was as high as 9 per cent.

This compared with 1.25 per cent in Melbourne and less than 1 per cent in Sydney.

Brisbane City Council recently announced a 50 per cent increase in rates for property owners who offered their homes for short stay.

The intention of the measure was to bring more homes back into the long-term rental market.

Michelle Mackenzie said she supported regulation of the market.

"I think we need to look at all of the solutions such as rates, such as taxation, looking at vacancy taxes such as they have in Melbourne," she said.

"We don't want to destroy the industry in terms of making sure that homes are built, and that investors are there for the rental market, so I think we need a suite of solutions and we're really keen to work with industry on those."

'Tiny proportion of market,' Airbnb says

But Airbnb said the company was keen to make a "positive contribution" to the issue.

"Housing affordability is a really difficult issue not just for people and communities, but also governments looking to genuinely tackle this policy challenge," Susan Wheeldon, Airbnb's country manager for Australia and New Zealand, said.

"It's a complex issue with a range of contributing factors such as population movements, the supply of new homes, the ratio of public housing, interest rates and broader economic conditions.

"While short-term rentals generally comprise a tiny proportion of the overall property market, we're keen to keep finding ways that we can make a positive contribution to this important issue.

"Short-term rentals also play an incredibly important role in growing Western Australia's economy and creating jobs for locals — and we want to keep working together with locals on this front."

More than tourism at stake, government argues

While regulation was largely up to councils, the WA government said it was still moving toward a system of state-wide registration.

Parliamentary secretary to the planning minister Jess Stojkovski said it was not just about tourism.

"There's a number of reasons [people] choose to make their property a short-term rental," she said.

"Sometimes it is tourism, but equally, a number of them like to do it around hospitals or health settings so that if people are coming in from the country that they've got accommodation available.

"State government doesn't get involved in how councils rate their landowners so that's definitely a local government decision to make."

Targeting short stays not the solution: REIWA

The Real Estate Institute of WA does not support what it describes as "punitive" measures.

Instead, REIWA president Damian Collins said greater measures were needed to boost rental supply.

"We have a very low vacancy rate, there's no doubt about that, and it certainly would help if we had more rental properties," he said.

"We would certainly think the best way to go about it is actually encourage more long-term investment in property and that would be a better way to go rather than trying to punish people for using their properties for Airbnb.

"It should be appropriately zoned for short stay, it shouldn't be just in every suburb in every neighbourhood, I think when you get past that it starts to be very difficult to control.

Mr Collins pointed at Uber as an example of why governments should not try to regulate against short-stay accommodation.

Increasing rates for short-stay property owners would only pass on the cost to the consumer, according to Mr Collins.

"I don't think it's going to change people's behaviour very much, you're talking about three dollars a night, for 365 days a year so I don't think it's going to have a significant impact," he said.

Adam Zorzi agreed.

"Ultimately it's going to get passed on to the end-user who's paying for the accommodation because that's just the way the market works but I don't think the government here's foreshadowed anything like that.

"We certainly wouldn't be supportive of it."

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