Short-term lettings in London

The number of homes that are rented out on a short-term basis is increasing. Tens of thousands of London homes appear on platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com and SpareRoom every year. This trend has resumed after the pandemic.  

City Hall wants to know what Londoners think about short-term lets in the capital. It’s a complicated issue, with benefits and challenges. Londoners can earn extra money renting out a spare room, for instance. But every home let regularly to tourists is one which can’t be used as a stable, long-term home for Londoners.  

The potential downsides are already recognised by limits on short-term lets. For spare rooms, landlords can let rooms all year round. But homeowners can rent out their entire home for a maximum of 90 nights a year in London. This is hard to enforce and some landlords are breaking the rules regularly.  

Some boroughs have very high numbers of short-term lettings while other have hardly any. This means the benefits, but also the challenges, are concentrated in different areas of the city.   

For example, Kensington and Chelsea saw 30 listings per 1,000 residents in October 2021. Other boroughs with large numbers of short-term lettings include: 

• City of London 
• Westminster 
• Hackney 
• Tower Hamlets 

This summer, the government is consulting on how to regulate short-term lets, like holiday rentals, serviced apartments and B&Bs.  

The Mayor will respond on behalf of London. He is keen to hear from Londoners to inform his understanding, including landlords, renters, tourists and people in neighbourhoods where short-term lets are common. 

The Mayor’s housing team  is also speaking to local authorities – including London boroughs, tourist hotspots and other big cities in England – to learn as much as possible.  

The Mayor’s housing team co-ordinates the Mayor’s work on housing, including the private rented sector.  

Working closely with boroughs and partners, it manages the Mayor’s housing investment programmes and land and property assets to support the building of genuinely affordable homes, job creation and regeneration. 

The team is responsible for keeping the London Housing Strategy under review. This covers issues including affordable housing, the diversity of the property development sector, the quality of homes, protecting leaseholders, reducing homelessness and improving temporary accommodation.  

In addition, the team carries out and publishes a wide range of data analysis. It consults widely with the community and voluntary sector, other parts of the government, and directly with Londoners, to ensure the Mayor’s housing policy is fully informed by the experience of Londoners.