I disagree that Airbnb is not one of the causes of the shortage. As of 2011 there were 306,105 renter-occupied units in Metro Vancouver (http://www.metrovancou

I disagree that Airbnb is not one of the causes of the shortage. As of 2011 there were 306,105 renter-occupied units in Metro Vancouver (http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/PlanningPublications/MV_Housing_Data_Book.pdf http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/Pla...) As of April 2017 there were an estimated 5,000 units on Airbnb (https://www.straight.com/news/943456/average-airbnb-prices-and-earnings-vancouver-are-miles-above-most-canada https://www.straight.com/news/943456/average-airbnb-prices-a...), but unclear if that's Metro Vancouver or a greater area. The City of Vancouver estimates that 1,600 rental units could be returned to the rental supply (http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/11/14/vancouver-cracks-down-on-airbnb.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/11/14/vancouver-...). The vacancy rate was 0.9% as of Nov 2017 (https://www.biv.com/article/2017/11/metro-vancouver-rental-vacancy-rate-remains-under-/ https://www.biv.com/article/2017/11/metro-vancouver-rental-v...). So, let's do some rough math: 306k units * 0.9% vacancy rate = 2,754. So Airbnb is holding up somewhere in the range of 50% - 100% of the vacancy rate of units in Metro Vancouver. It isn't a giant number, but if they were released back onto the market, that's a significant amount of stock to be available for renting, and I'd expect would relieve some upward pressure on rent prices. That said, I don't disagree that there are other causes too, such as zoning, lack of many new builds until the last 10 years, and empty apartments. But my hunch is that Airbnb is a bigger factor than empty apartments, and a lesser factor than zoning/builds.