Airbnb in Denver

The Law

As at June 2016, under Denver's zoning laws, it is illegal to rent out a room or apartment for less than 30 days at a time.

A new Ordinance has been developed by the City Council and is scheduled to be adopted in June 2016. Key elements of the Ordinance include:

A license is required to operate a STR ($25 p.a.)
Licensee must have permission from the landlord or property owner to operate STR (if applicable).
STR Unit must be Licensee’s primary residence.
Licensee must possess a valid Denver Lodger’s Tax, and any other applicable tax account numbers.
Licensee must list the unit’s STR license number on any online, print or other advertisements.
Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) can be used for STRs, but only one STR license can be granted per Primary Resident's property.

Airbnb data for Denver

Inside Airbnb

A conservative occupancy model has been built in order to estimate Occupancy Rates, Income per Month and Nights per Year. More information on the methodolgy of the occupancy model can be found in the disclaimers.

Inside Airbnb: Denver uses the following parameters:

A high availability metric and filter of 60 days per year
A frequently rented filter of 60 days per year
A review rate of 50% for the number of guests making a booking who leave a review
An average booking of 3.5 nights unless a higher minimum nights is configured for a listing. (Airbnb indicates that average stays in Denver are between 3 and 4 nights.)
A maximum occupancy rate of 70% to ensure the occupancy model does not produce artifically high results based on the available data

If you are a data scientist, urban or public policy planner, researcher or journalist, get the data, analyze and publish your results.

If you would like your analysis hosted, or linked to from this site, please contact murray@murraycox.com.

Airbnb

Airbnb provides NO PUBLIC DATA to help understand the use of their platform and the impact on cities around the world.

Airbnb also provide NO DATA to cities or states to assist them in ensuring that Airbnb hosts and Airbnb are following the local laws.

Other data

Tom Slee regularly scrapes the Airbnb site to produce maps and analysis of Airbnb use around the world.
A relatively conservative analysis of Airbnb data for Denver (using rentals exceeding half of the year to signify impact on residential housing)was conducted by Coloroda Public Radio in November, 2015.
An analysis or Short Term Rental use was conducted by the Planning and Neighborhoods committee of the City and County of Denver.

Close About Airbnb in Denver

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How is Airbnb really being used in and affecting your neighborhoods?

Only entire homes/apartments

Room Type

##.#%

entire homes/apartments

$###

price/night

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entire home/apartments

#,### (##.#%)

private rooms

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shared rooms

Airbnb hosts can list entire homes/apartments, private or shared rooms.

Depending on the room type, availability, and activity, an airbnb listing could be more like a hotel, disruptive for neighbors, taking away housing, and illegal.

Only recent and frequently booked

Activity

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estimated nights/year

##.#

reviews/listing/month

###,###

reviews

$###

price/night

##.#%

estimated occupancy

$###

estimated income/month

Airbnb guests may leave a review after their stay, and these can be used as an indicator of airbnb activity.

The minimum stay, price and number of reviews have been used to estimate the occupancy rate, the number of nights per year and the income per month for each listing.

How does the income from Airbnb compare to a long-term lease?

Do the number of nights booked per year make it impossible for a listing to be used for residential housing?

And what is renting to a tourist full-time rather than a resident doing to our neighborhoods and cities?

load reviews

Animate reviews

Only highly available

Availability

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high availability

### (##.#%)

listings w high availability

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listings w low availability

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days/year

An Airbnb host can setup a calendar for their listing so that it is only available for a few days or weeks a year.

Other listings are available all year round (except for when it is already booked).

Entire homes or apartments highly available year-round for tourists, probably don't have the owner present, could be illegal, and more importantly, are displacing residents.

See the disclaimers for how the Airbnb calendar may not be accurate.

Only multi-listings

Listings per Host

##.#%

multi-listings

##,### (##.#%)

single listings

#,### (##.#%)

multi-listings

Some Airbnb hosts have multiple listings.

A host may list separate rooms in the same apartment, or multiple apartments or homes available in their entirity.

Hosts with multiple listings are more likely to be running a business, are unlikely to be living in the property, and therefore could be in violation of short term rental laws designed to protect residential housing.

Show top hosts