More than half of Vancouver Airbnb hosts use income to pay rent, mortgage: study

Jul 7, 2016 | 11:20 AM

VANCOUVER — The home-sharing service Airbnb says it doesn’t believe it’s having a negative impact on rental vacancies in Vancouver.

A new report released by the company today based on 2015 statistics says that more than half of the people who rent out their homes do so to afford their cost of living.

There are over 4,200 active Airbnb hosts in Vancouver.

The report says the average host makes an income of about $6,500 annually by occasionally renting out space and uses at least half of what it makes to pay for their rent or mortgage, or to cover the cost of household items like groceries.