October 17, 2023
By Drs. Gillian Petit & Lindsay Tedds
Department of Economics
University of Calgary
Report prepared for the City of Calgary
A Detailed Portrait of
the Short-Term Rental
Market in Calgary
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Contact Author:
Dr. Lindsay M. Tedds
Associate Professor, Economics
www.lindsaytedds.ca
This research paper was produced as part of the City of Calgary–Urban Alliance Agreement made effective on 12
January 2023 (Research Services File Number 1060024).The City of Calgary is collaborating with researchers at the
University of Calgary (UCalgary), under the Urban Alliance partnership, on a multi-year study of Calgary’s short-
term rental (STR) market. The goals of the study are to build a comprehensive evidence base on Calgary’s STR market
(including impacts, challenges, and opportunities), and to use this information to recommend a tailor-made STR policy
framework for Calgary that can be adapted as market conditions change. Engagement with Calgarians and interested
parties is an important component of the Short-Term Rental Study. The authors thank the City of Calgary for funding
this work.
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Executive Summary
In Calgary the expansion of the short-term rental (STR) market has produced wide-ranging implications
for individuals, communities, and various sectors. To address those implications, the City of Calgary (The
City) introduced an initial phase of STR regulations in February 2020. However, the disruption produced
by the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, coupled with continued market evolution and impact of the STR
regulations means that Calgary’s STR market is now different from that which existed when the
regulations were first designed. As Calgary looks to adopt a second comprehensive phase of STR
regulations a sophisticated evidence base is needed to ensure STR regulatory approaches and processes
manage negative community impacts, as well as enable The City to leverage STR activity to achieve
broader economic, social, and environmental goals. This underscores the need for a full review of the STR
market in Calgary that integrates recent knowledge and evidence along with stakeholder perspectives.
This report is one of several reports prepared for the City of Calgary on the STR market. In this report, we
compile a detailed portrait of the STR market in Calgary based on data on Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings. To ensure that we reflect the state of the market, we took several novel steps in the analysis. This
included the manual inspection of STR listings and hosts to ensure they were objectively and accurately
categorized. We also employ novel methodologies to differentiate between permanent versus non-
permanent rentals based on actual patterns of use instead of relying on a subjective definition. Finally,
we examine business license compliance, linking active listings to business administrative data, and then
inspecting those links for validity. This is a more accurate assessment of compliance than crude estimates
that divide the number of listings by the number of business licenses in a municipality. We end this report
by estimating the number of housing units STRs are removing from the housing market in Calgary.
The main take-aways of this paper are:
SIZE
The STR market has fully
recovered from the
COVID dip.
LOCATION
City Centre communities
and new developing
communities have more
STR activity.
COMPLIANCE
The majority of STR
listings are compliant
with business license
requirements.
LISTINGS
Most hosts operate 1 or
2 STRs.
PERMANANCY
Most listings are only
listed episodically or
temporarily.
HOUSING STOCK
It is possible that 25% of
listings could be returned
to the housing market
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Overall, we strove to provide an accurate reflection of the STR market in Calgary, improving on the data
and methodologies that have been used in this literature. We find that Calgary has a vibrant STR market
that serves a critical role during events like Stampede and provides economic opportunities to those
operating STRs as well as the City. However, the STR market in Calgary is growing and there is a sizable
amount of commercialization. Calgary faces other related and critical policy issues such as a lack of
affordable housing and a lack of student housing. Now is an opportune time to examine the STR market
and grapple with what role it should play in the housing market and the accommodation market using
thoughtful and intentioned regulations.
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary................................................................................................ 1
Table of Contents ................................................................................................... 5
1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 7
2. Data .............................................................................................................. 9
3. Supply Side: A Detailed Portrait of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Listings ... 11
3.1 Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Listings Over Time ...................................................................... 11
3.2 Listing Type ................................................................................................................................. 14
3.3 Spatial Analysis of Listings ........................................................................................................... 16
4. Demand Side: A Look at Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Bookings, Occupancy
Rate, and Community Impact ............................................................................... 23
4.1 Time Trends: Nightly Bookings ................................................................................................... 23
4.2 Year-Over-Year Change in Nightly Bookings ............................................................................... 24
4.3 Occupancy Rate .......................................................................................................................... 25
4.4 Nightly Bookings and Occupancy Rate by Community ............................................................... 27
4.5 Community Impacts: Complaints by Community ....................................................................... 29
5. Monetary Incentives: Revenues of Airbnb and VRBO Listings ..................... 31
5.1 Revenue Time Trends ................................................................................................................. 32
5.2 Revenue by Community .............................................................................................................. 32
6. Business License Compliance ...................................................................... 35
7. A Portrait of Short-Term Rental Hosts in Calgary ........................................ 37
7.1 Host Profile: Property Managers ................................................................................................ 39
7.2 Multi-Listing Hosts ...................................................................................................................... 40
7.3 Multi-Listing Hosts and Host Type .............................................................................................. 43
8. Full Time Listings: A New Approach ............................................................ 44
8.1 Method ....................................................................................................................................... 46
8.2 Results ......................................................................................................................................... 46
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9. Impact on the Housing Market ................................................................... 51
9.1 Spatial Distribution ..................................................................................................................... 52
10. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 53
References ........................................................................................................... 54
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1. Introduction
In Calgary, as is the case around the world, the expansion of the short-term rental (STR) market has
produced wide-ranging implications for individuals, communities, and various sectors. To address those
implications, the City of Calgary (The City) introduced an initial phase of STR regulations in February 2020.
However, the disruption produced by the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, coupled with continued
market evolution and impact of the STR regulations means that Calgary’s STR economy is now different
from that which existed when the regulations were first designed. As Calgary looks to implement revised
STR regulations in January 2024 as well as consider a comprehensive suite of flexible regulatory measures,
a sophisticated evidence base is necessary to ensure new approaches and processes both manage
negative community impacts, as well as enable The City to leverage STR activity to achieve broader
economic, social, and environmental goals. This underscores the need for a full review of the STR market
in Calgary that integrates recent knowledge and evidence along with stakeholder perspectives, including
those of STR hosts, housing advocates, the hotel industry, and residents.
In this report, we provide an extensive, evidence-based picture of the STR market in Calgary as of Summer
2023. This is the second report in a series of reports that assesses patterns and trends in the Calgary STR
market. In the first report, we reviewed the current STR regulations in Calgary, and, using Airbnb data
from June 2017 to June 2021, we assessed patterns and trends in the Calgary STR market to get a sense
of the size and trajectory of the market, as well as understand who the hosts are, and what guests are
looking for. In this report, we extend that data analysis up to and including July 2023. Future reports will
gather and consider stakeholder perspectives, look at the role of STRs withing Calgary’s regulatory
environment, and provide regulatory recommendations.
In 2018, an STR scoping review report was commissioned by The City and the initial regulations
(implemented in February 2020) were based on that report. However, recognizing that the landscape of
the STR market has changed and STRs continue to have an evolving impact on the hotel industry, local
communities, and city services—representing both an opportunity and cause for concern— in June 2022,
Council approved a Notice of Motion directing Administration to review and revise STR business license
requirements. In May 2023, Administration proposed changes to the STR bylaws that will increase
protection for guests, particularly fire safety. Fire safety became top of minds of municipalities across
Canada following the fatal fire in an Old Montreal building where a number of illegal Airbnbs were
operating. The proposed changes were accepted by council in June 2023 and will be effective in January
2024. These changes were proposed as interim measures as this in-depth review of the STR market is
ongoing.
As stated in Tedds et al. (2021), the STR market is complex and the activity that unfolds within it is diverse
(p. 5). Unlike typical regulated markets, there are three actors in an STR market: hosts, guests, and the
platform, all with different motivations for participation. From a policy perspective, the differing
motivations of actors layered with various municipal polices—including zoning regulations, municipal
development plans, and affordable housing initiatives—pose challenges to regulating the STR market.
Applying standard regulatory responses in the face of these challenges can create “regulatory fractures”—
when existing regulatory frameworks apply to a new mode of activity in an incomplete fashion (Tedds et
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al. 2021). The overall objective of this project is to assemble a thorough evidence base to create a flexible
regulatory framework that addresses regulatory fractures specifically for the City of Calgary, its unique
STR market, and considers the impact of the STR market on related markets and concerns (e.g., hotel
industry, LTR’s, community impact).
In this paper, we compiled a detailed portrait of the STR market in Calgary based on data on Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings. To ensure that we reflect the state of the market to the best of our ability, we
undertook several novel steps in the analysis. This included the manual inspection of STR listings and hosts
to ensure they were objectively and accurately categorized (e.g., as private rooms vs. entire
home/apartments), and we included new categories (e.g., basement suites) to ensure the data more
closely reflects what is actually happening in the market. We also employed novel methodologies, such
as a cluster analysis to find permanent rentals, which uses an algorithm to define permanent listings based
on actual patterns of use instead of relying on a subjective definition often employed in the literature.
Finally, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first jurisdictional report to examine business license
compliance in a careful and thorough manner, linking active listings to business administrative data, and
then inspecting those links for validity. This is a more accurate assessment of compliance than crude
estimates that divide the number of listings by the number of business licenses in a municipality. Overall,
we strove to provide an accurate reflection of the STR market in Calgary, improving on the data and
methodologies that have been used in this literature.
The main take-aways of this paper are:
• While the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the STR market in Calgary, since late 2022 the STR
market has rebounded and is growing at pre-COVID rates.
• Some communities have more STR activity (e.g., active listings, nightly bookings, and market
growth) than other communities. These include centre communities such as the Beltline, Crescent
Heights, and Sunnyside, and developing communities such as Seton, Livingston, and Cornerstone.
• STR activity across communities differs. Centre communities are more likely to have apartment
listings and more STR-related complaints, while developing communities are more likely to have
basement suites and less STR-related complaints.
• The majority of STR listings in Calgary are compliant with business license requirements (70%)—
they have a valid business license number, it is posted in their STR listing, and it is not used across
multiple, unrelated STR listings.
• Most STR hosts in Calgary are individuals who operate fewer than two listings on average. A small
number of hosts are property managers, operating listings for property owners, and they control
a disproportionately large share of the market.
• There is also a small number of hosts who are multi-listing hosts (12%). They are the most likely
to be purchasing property for the sole purpose of operating it as an STR, and they control a
disproportionately large share of the Calgary STR market (52% of the total revenue).
• Most STR listings in Calgary are non-permanent listings (~79% in July 2022). A small number of
listings are permanent listings (~21% in July 2022) and are the least likely to be used as a
permanent residence, removing housing from the housing market.
• In total, we estimate that about 1,580 (27%) STR listings in July 2023 were listings that could
potentially to be returned to the housing market if STRs were hypothetically banned (i.e., they are
not used as a permanent residence but are dedicated STRs). This represents about 0.29% of
private dwellings. The Beltline had the highest number of these dedicated STRs by far.
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Overall, we find that Calgary has a vibrant STR market that serves a critical role during events like
Stampede and provides economic opportunities to those operating STRs as well as the City. However, the
STR market in Calgary is growing and there is a sizable amount of commercialization. Calgary faces other
related and critical policy issues such as a lack of affordable housing and a lack of student housing. Now is
an opportune time to examine the STR market and grapple with what role it should play in the housing
market and the accommodation market using thoughtful and intentioned regulations.
2. Data
As short-term rental platforms do not share their data, for this report, we use proprietary data purchased
from AirDNA. (AirDNA n.d.).
1
AirDNA scrapes data on STRs listed on Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway. This
scraped data includes two linkable data sets: the “property” data set that contains information on the
characteristics of the listing itself (as reported by the host) such as the property type (e.g., apartment),
listing type (e.g., entire apartment or single room), the number of bedrooms, and the published nightly
fee. In the more recent data, (April 2023 – July 2023), the property data set also contains a business license
number if an STR listings includes on in its listing. The second data set is the “monthly” data set. It contains
monthly transaction data for each listing that includes the number of bookings per month, the number of
days available in a month, the occupancy rate, and the monthly revenue. Unlike the property data, the
transaction data has had to be estimated by AirDNA from 2015 onwards as Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
does not provide information on bookings. AirDNA uses machine learning algorithms based on an
enormous historical dataset to perform the estimations. This introduces uncertainty; however, Calgary’s
STR market is somewhat large so the number of observations in the historical dataset reduces the
uncertainty. Outside of data supplied directly from STR platforms, we believe that this is the best available
data set on the STR market.
2
We use AirDNA data spanning from January 2017 until July 2023—a period
of six years, spanning before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, it should be noted that if
an Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listing share a calendar and are fundamentally the same listing, they are
combined into a single STR listing by AirDNA. This avoids double-counting of identical STR listings.
The data provided by AirDNA is raw data that must be reviewed and properly prepared for analysis. To
this end, we undertook several data cleaning steps which are novel in this space. That is, while other
research examines the data from AirDNA, they assume that what has been scraped is the “truth”.
However, when one begins manually inspecting the scraped data, it becomes clear that there are
deficiencies in the scraped data that require correcting for a more accurate picture of the STR market.
First, some listings are posted by traditional tourist accommodations such as hotels, motels, lodges, inns,
and hostels. While these may be listed on STR sites, they are not what we consider as STRs, which are
accommodations that are in or on a property that could otherwise be used for residential purposes. Thus,
we manually checked all hosts and listings in our data to ensure that traditional tourist accommodations
were excluded from the analysis.
1
The terms of the agreement with AirDNA are such that AirDNA retains intellectual property rights over the raw data transferred.
The raw data were provided to the authors for the purpose of statistical and research purposes and cannot be republished or
disclosed to a third party without the written consent of AirDNA.
2
This data is also widely used by other authors looking at STRs in Canada and/or the effects of STR regulation. See for examples:
Combs, Kerrigan, and Wachsmuth (2020); DiNatale, Lewis, and Parker (2018).
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Second, to get a better understanding of hosts, we manually inspected every host in our data. We
categorized hosts into several categories including property managers, corporate hosts, and individual
hosts.
3
Third, since hosts personally choose how to describe their STR listing, this results in similar words being
used to describe dissimilar listings. For example, suppose a host has listed a bedroom, bathroom, and
living/rec room in their basement of a single detached house as their STR listing (where the host lives
upstairs). Some hosts may refer to this as a “private room” in a residential house while other hosts may
list it as an “entire house/apartment” in a residential house. To standardize listing characteristics, we
manually checked listings in our data for April 2023 – July 2023 and re-categorized the listing type (e.g.,
private room versus entire home/apartment) and property type (e.g., apartment, house, etc.).
4
Together,
these data cleaning steps allows us to provide a more accurate picture of the STR market.
Two other features of the AirDNA data of which to be aware. First, listings are more proliferate than then
number of private dwellings/properties used as an STR. Some hosts have multiple listings for the same
private dwelling. For example, a host may have one listing for an entire single detached house, plus
separate listings for separate rooms in the same house, plus separate listings for the upstairs and
downstairs. Another common example is one host separately listing various rooms in one private dwelling.
In both examples, there is only one private dwelling. This issue cannot be resolved with precision and
must be borne in mind in the interpretation of results.
Second, some hosts use Airbnb not to list STR’s but to list dwellings that they intend to rent for more than
28 days (an LTR). While it is unclear the proportion of listings that are used in this manner, it may be
problematic: it may allow landlords to avoid provisions under the Residential Tenancies Act.
5
In our data
analysis we assume all listings are for STRs (less than 28 days), but this may not be the case (and should
be a consideration in STR regulations, a topic we will address in a future phases of this project).
3
For a more detailed explanation on host types, see the section on Hosts.
4
For a more detailed explanation of how we categorized property types and listing types, see the section on listing type.
5
While it is unknown whether this is an issue in Calgary, there is at least one Toronto case where it is being argued whether a
long-term Airbnb rental is protected by the Rental Tenancy Agreement (Arsenych 2023).
Data Summary
• Includes all Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary and Edmonton from January 2017 –
July 2023.
• Listings are scraped by AirDNA who then uses a machine learning algorithm to estimate bookings
and revenue per listing.
• We manually inspected all Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary present in the AirDNA
data to manually categorize host type (e.g., individual vs. property manager) and listing type (e.g.,
private room vs. entire home/apartment vs. entire suite) — a novel approach to the data.
• All traditional tourist accommodations (e.g., hotel room) have been removed.
• STR listings ≠ private dwellings used as an STR.
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3. Supply Side: A Detailed Portrait of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
Listings
In this section, we look in-depth at the supply side of the STR market in Calgary (with comparison to
Edmonton as a reference). We look at: growth in Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings over time and how
COVID has affected that growth, the breakdown of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings into various
listing types, and a spatial analysis of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings.
3.1 Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Listings Over Time
Since Calgary’s first STR regulations were introduced in February 2020, the STR market was altered by the
COVID-19 pandemic. While the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the growth of Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary, Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary have been growing
at a rate similar to pre-COVID, leading to a higher overall number of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings.
As of July 2023, there were 5,698 active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings
6
in the City of Calgary.
7
Figure 1 plots the number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary (left panel) and
Edmonton (right panel) between January 2017 and June 2023.
8
The black line shows total active Airbnb
and VRBO/HomeAway listings, the blue line shows active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that are
self-described by hosts as an “entire home/apartment”, and the red line shows active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings that are self-described by hosts as “private rooms”.
9,10
Figure 1 shows that there are clear seasonal trends in Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway active listings in
Calgary. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, large “spikes” in active listings in Calgary occur in the month of
July—the month when Calgary hosts the Calgary Stampede, a large outdoor rodeo and fair—with smaller
spikes occurring in December around the Christmas holidays. The Stampede spike persisted during the
COVID pandemic even when Stampede was cancelled (e.g., July 2020). Edmonton displays similar seasonal
trends, with spikes occurring in August during Capital Ex (previously called K-Days and Klondike Days) and
December holidays; however, the summer spike are less pronounced than in Calgary as Capital Ex is not
as large a tourist draw as Stampede.
6
Note that prior to June 2020, VRBO listings were called “HomeAway” listings. Both VRBO and HomeAway are owned by Expedia.
Expedia retired HomeAway in June 2020 and re-branded as VRBO to streamline their vacation rentals across countries.
7
“Active” listings refers to Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that are available to be booked for rental (whether or not they
were booked).
8
When additional data becomes available, we will update these results.
9
Note that active listings self-described as “shared rooms” are not shown as they make up less than 1% of active listings.
10
As we will show, these self-described listing types are not standardized. We standardize them based on manual inspections for
April 2023 – June 2023 and present the results below.
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Figure 1: Acve Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisngs, Calgary and Edmonton, January 2017 - July 2023
Figure 1 also shows that, over the time period examined, the number of active listings in both cities has
increased, but this increase has not been consistent. Active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings declined
in both cities beginning in early 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both began to recover in
winter 2021. Edmonton’s active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings recovered beyond pre-pandemic
numbers as of June 2022, while Calgary’s active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings surpassed pre-
pandemic active listings as of October 2022: Calgary’s STR active listings were four months slower to
recover than Edmonton’s.
Finally, Figure 1 shows the majority of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary (and
Edmonton) are self-described “entire home/apartments”. Self-described “entire home/apartments”
listings have grown at a much faster rate than self-described “private room” listings. Particularly, post-
COVID, private room listings have slowed their growth in Calgary and stagnated in Edmonton, and neither
city’s private room listings have reached pre-pandemic levels.
To get a better understanding of whether and how the COVID pandemic affected the STR market in
Calgary, in Figure 2 we plot the growth in active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings year-over-year. The
first panel of Figure 2 only includes pre-pandemic years, 2017 to 2019. Each additional panel introduces
one additional post-pandemic year until all years are shown (2017 to 2023). This allows us to examine the
number of active listings for each year in isolation.
In the top left panel, we see that from 2017 to 2019, active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in
Calgary grew steadily from 2,183 listings in January 2017 to 3,946 listings in December 2019 — an 81%
increase in active listings. However, when the pandemic hit in March 2020, we see from the top right
figure, active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary declined to below 2017 levels. They
remained below 2017 levels throughout all of 2021 (middle left panel) until January 2022 (middle right
panel). In October 2022, the number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway active listings finally
surpassed 2019 active listings. Since October 2022, active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings have
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continued to grow. As the bottom right panel shows, the number of active listings in July 2023 was up
over 1,000 listings (24%) from the number of active listings in June 2019. This suggests that Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings are once again on a steadily increasing growth path in Calgary despite being
interrupted by the pandemic.
Figure 2: Acve Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisngs, Calgary, Year-Over-Year, January 2017 - July 2023
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3.2 Listing Type
Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway allows hosts to choose their own listing type. They must choose one of the
following: entire home/apartment, private room, hotel room, or shared room. While Airbnb does provide
a suggested definition of these (e.g., Airbnb 2023), allowing hosts to choose their own listing types results
in inconsistency across listings as hosts apply their own interpretations. For example, as we will see,
basement suites are a common STR type in Calgary. However, when the entrance to a basement suite STR
listing is shared, some hosts refer to such a listing as an entire home/apartment, while others label it a
private room. In Figure 1, we saw that self-described “entire home/apartment” listings have been driving
STR growth in Calgary. In this section, we nuance this result, and manually check and standardize listing
types. This provides a better understanding of the STR market in Calgary.
As suggested, to carry out this analysis, we manually re-categorized the listing type of all Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary from April 2023 to July 2023.
11
We conceptualize “listing type” as a
description as to whether or not there is shared space in the STR with the host or other guests/tenants.
The listing types we defined are:
• Entire home/apartment: there are no shared spaces and no other tenants/hosts in the same
private dwelling. The entire private dwelling is entirely for the guest. This includes the
basement, if present. For example, a listing for a single detached home that includes the
basement, main floor, and upper floors or a 1-bedroom apartment that is entirely not shared
would both be an “entire home/apartment” listing.
• Entire suite: there are no shared spaces within the suite although laundry rooms, backyards, and
the main entrance may be shared with the occupants of another (related) suite. There may be
other occupants in the same private dwelling in another (related) suite. The suite comprises only
a portion of the private dwelling. For example, a listing in a single detached house that has a
private basement suite available to the guest while the host/other tenant lives on the main floor
is an “entire suite”.
• Private room: the guest has private access to a bedroom (and possible a bathroom) within the
private dwelling unit. All other spaces are shared with the host or other tenants/guests, e.g.,
shared kitchen and living area.
• Shared room: the guest sleeps in a common room and all spaces are shared, e.g., the guest sleeps
on a couch or air mattress in the shared living room.
Similarly, hosts are allowed to choose their “property type”; however, the choice is subjective and not
standardized across hosts. To correct for this, we first conceptualize property type as referring to the
structure of the private dwelling in which the STR is located. We then manually checked all Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary from April 2023 to July 2023 to determine their property type. In the
manual inspection, we only classified a listing’s property type if we could confirm their property type in a
photograph: we did not rely on a host’s self-described property type. The property types we used are:
• Single detached house (house): note that a STR listing in a legal secondary suite in an otherwise
single detached house is classified as a single detached house.
11
Note that we did not clean/manually verify the Edmonton data due to time constraints.
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• Apartment: high-rise apartments and condo buildings that are not townhouses, duplex’s,
triplexes, or fourplexes.
• Multi-family: multi-family dwellings including townhouses/row houses, duplex’s, triplexes, and
fourplexes.
• Guest house: STR listings in a structure that is not part of the main dwelling structure on the
property. For example, detached laneway houses, carriage houses, and units over top of a
detached garage all classify as a guest house.
• Camping: includes units one would camp in including trailers and tents.
Figure 3 plots the number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings by our re-categorized listing
types and property types for July 2023. There are 5,104 active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that
we could manually categorize (e.g., the listing had not been removed at the time of manual inspection).
Of those, the most common listing type was entire home/apartments (2,507 or 49%) followed by entire
suites (1,609 or 32%). Breaking that down further, the most common listing + property type was entire
apartment units (1,326 or 26%) and the second most common type were basement suites (1,210 or 24%).
Entire single detached houses are less common, with only 581 (11%) of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings appearing to be for an entire single detached house. Private rooms are not as common as either
entire home/apartments or entire suites, and, when private rooms are listed, they are more likely to be
in single detached houses: there are very few private room listings in apartments or multi-family units.
12
This re-enforces and extends the analysis from Figure 1. As with Figure 1, even after manually re-coding
listing types, entire home/apartment listings make up the majority of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings while private rooms make up significantly less listings. However, we now also see that of entire
home/apartment listings, it is more specifically entire apartment listings and entire basement suites that
are the most common, while entire home listings and entire multi-family listings are fewer. Further, with
respect to private room listings, private rooms in single detached houses make up the majority of private
room listings.
There are two other notes to make. First, the number of entire suites and private room listings suggests
many listings are located in dwellings where a portion of the dwelling is occupied by others (e.g., the hosts
or other STR/LTR tenants). Second, this pattern suggests that STRs may differ by community. Communities
with more apartments may have more entire apartment STR listings while communities with more single
detached homes may have more entire suites and private room STR listings. We examine this issue in
depth in the next section.
12
We examined this breakdown for April 2023, May 2023, and June 2023. While the number of listings per type
change, the relative percentages are the same regardless of month.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
16
Figure 3: Airbnb and VRO/HomeAway Acve Lisngs by Manually Categorized Lisng Type and Property Type, Calgary
3.3 Spatial Analysis of Listings
In this section, we examine where STR’s are located within Calgary. We allocate Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings to a community (with community boundaries as defined by the City of Calgary).
For most Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings, the exact geographic location is not provided.
13
Rather, a
latitude and longitude that is up to 150 meters away from the exact location is provided. To ensure we
attribute the Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listing to the most likely community, we take the area that
listing could be in, and figure out which communities it overlaps. We assign Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings to the community with the most overlap.
In this section, we look at three different spatial patterns: general spatial distribution of STR listings across
communities, STR listing growth by community, and STR listing type and property type by community. The
purpose of this examination is to identify which communities have the most STR activity, and what that
activity looks like.
3.3.1 General Spatial Distribution Across Communities
As stated, to begin we examine the number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings by Calgary
community in April 2023 and July 2023 in Figure 4. Table 1 lists the top 10 communities by Airbnb and
13
There are some listings that provide an exact location. We take those as is.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
17
VRBO/HomeAway listings in July 2023. In Table 1, centre communities are highlighted in green and
developing communities are highlighted in orange.
Figure 4 and Table 1show that STR listings in Calgary are concentrated in centre communities. In particular,
the Beltline has a far greater number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings than any other
community regardless of the month examined. Outside of centre communities, developing communities
of Seton, Livingston, and Cornerstone also have a large number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings (despite being located in different quadrants of the City).
Figure 4: Airbnb and VRBO Number of Lisngs by Community, April 2023 and July 2023
Table 1: Top 10 Communies by Number of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisngs, July 2023
Community
Number of
Airbnb and
VRBO Listings
Sector
Community Status
(as of 2021)
BELTLINE
701
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
LIVINGSTON
128
NORTH
DEVELOPING
SETON
118
SOUTHEAST
DEVELOPING
CRESCENT HEIGHTS
115
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
SUNNYSIDE
98
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
DOWNTOWN COMMERCIAL
CORE
88 CENTRE ESTABLISHED
CHINATOWN
79
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
BRIDGELAND/RIVERSIDE
78
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
CORNERSTONE
76
NORTHEAST
DEVELOPING
DOWNTOWN EAST VILLAGE
75
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
*For April 2023, May 2023, and June 2023 the top 10 communities by STR listings were very similar as in July 2023; however, their order differed
somewhat (but Beltline was always the community with the most STR listings), and Panorama sometimes trades off with Downtown East Village.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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3.3.2 Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Listing Growth by Community
Digging into these trends further, we next examine which communities have seen the strongest growth
in active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings. Recalling from Figure 2 how the COVID-19 pandemic
interrupted active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary, we omit examining COVID years, and
instead do a year-over-year comparison, comparing April 2019 to April 2023 and July 2019 to July 2023.
Further, because many Calgary communities had zero active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in July
2019 (e.g., the developing communities of Seton and Livingston), we cannot examine percentage growth.
Instead, we examine absolute growth. Figure 5 provides a visual of the change in the number of Airbnb
and VRBO/HomeAway listings between April 2019 to April 2023 (left panel) and July 2019 to July 2023
(right panel) by community. Table 2 lists the top 10 communities by Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listing
growth between July 2019 and July 2023.
Figure 5: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisng Growth by Community Year-Over-Year, April and July
We make several observations from Figure 5 and Table 2. First, the majority of communities have had
negative, zero, or small (e.g., less than 30 listings) Airbnb/VRBO/HomeAway listing growth between 2019
and 2023. Second, the majority of Airbnb/VRBO/HomeAway listing growth has been concentrated in
developing communities. Some of these same developing communities, as of July 2023, had the most
active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings by community (Table 1). In particular, Seton, Livingston, and
Cornerstone all were part of the top 10 communities by number of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings in July 2023. Third, outside of the Beltline, centre communities saw very little active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listing growth. In fact, Downtown East Village lost 57 STR listings between July 2019
and July 2023, the largest decline of any community. This suggests that, despite the higher number of
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
19
Table 2: Top 10 Communies by Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisng Growth, July 2019 to July 2023
Community
Change in the Number
of active Airbnb and
VRBO Listings
Sector
Community Status
(2021)
BELTLINE
145
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
LIVINGSTON
117
NORTH
DEVELOPING
SETON
94
SOUTHEAST
DEVELOPING
CORNERSTONE
73
NORTHEAST
DEVELOPING
CARRINGTON
57
NORTH
DEVELOPING
SUNNYSIDE
54
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
CITYSCAPE
41
NORTHEAST
DEVELOPING
REDSTONE
39
NORTHEAST
DEVELOPING
SAGE HILL
38
NORTH
DEVELOPING
MAHOGANY
36
SOUTHEAST
DEVELOPING
active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings, listings in centre communities are not seeing large growth
outside of the Beltline. Finally, the Beltline was the community with both the most active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings in July 2023 and saw the largest growth in active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings from July 2019 to July 2023. This suggests that the Beltline is the top community for STR activity.
3.3.3 Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Listing Type by Community
In our final spatial analysis of listings, we examine the different listing types in each community. Drawing
from Figure 3, we look at July 2023 listings and break down Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in each
community into basement suites, upper suites, entire apartments, entire single detached homes, entire
multi-family homes, and private rooms in a house. Further, we retain only those communities with 35 or
more listings in July 2023. For each community, we find the percentage of active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings by listing type and plot it in Figure 6 for centre communities, Figure 7 for
developing communities, and Figure 8 for “other” communities (i.e., not a centre community nor a
developing community).
From these figures, we see that Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in centre communities are more
likely to be entire apartments. Of the 24 centre communities with 35+ listings, entire apartment listings
make up the largest type of listing in 15 of them. Further, some centre communities with the highest
number of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings have nearly 100% entire apartment listings. This includes:
the Beltline, Chinatown, Downtown Commercial Core, and Downtown East Village. Likewise, Cliff
Bungalow, Sunnyside, and Mission—also centre communities but with not as many Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings—also have a higher percentage of entire apartment STR listings (between 60%
and 90%). The remaining Centre communities examined have a wider variety of STR types. Of note, Banff
Trail has a high percentage of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that are private rooms in a single
detached house. This is likely due to its location near the University and the LRT, making it a popular
location for students.
Second, Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in developing communities are more likely to be basement
suites. Except for Redstone, all the developing communities with 35+ Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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listings have 20% of greater of their Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings being basement suites. Entire
apartment listings are much less prominent; however, they do make up a mid-percentage of listings in
Skyview, Seton, Redstone, and Cornerstone.
Finally, active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in “other” communities are more varied than in
developing or centre communities. Entire houses, entire multi-family units, basement suites, upper suites
and private rooms in detached houses all have a significant presence in these communities. The least likely
listing type in there “other” communities are entire apartments.
Figure 6: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisngs by Lisng Type and Community, Centre Communies, July 2023
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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Figure 7: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisngs by Lisng Type and Community, Developing Communies, July 2023
Figure 8: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Lisngs by Lisng Type and Community, Other Communies, July 2023
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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To conclude: Figure 3 told us that entire apartments were the main Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listing
type in Calgary in July 2023 followed by basement suites. Breaking this down by community provides a
more nuanced view and shows us that listing type varies by community. Centre communities are the most
likely to have entire apartment listings whereas developing communities are the most likely to have
basement suites. This variation is most likely due to housing type in each community. While we do not
have data to confirm, it is intuitively likely that centre communities in the downtown core, have more
apartments/condos and less multi-family (townhouses, duplex, triplex) and single detached houses, while
the opposite is true in developing communities.
14
Another explanation for the increased presence of basement suites in developing communities is changes
to the process for approval of secondary suites combined with zoning changes. Prior to March 2018,
homeowners that wanted to renovate their home and include a legal secondary suite had to appear in
from of City council to request a land use re-designation. As of March 2018, this requirement was
abolished and homeowners were required, instead, to register their secondary suite and prove they met
certain safety and legal requirements. With respect to zoning, as of April 2016, the Residential Low Density
Mixed Housing (R-G)(R-Gm) District was introduced. Under the RG zoning, more flexible forms of housing
were allowed and, in particular, secondary suites are a permitted use: approval before City council for a
secondary suite (prior to March 2018) was not required. After April 2016, developing communities sought
the RG zoning designation, and were able to include secondary suites as an additional (optional) feature
to those looking to build a house in the community.
15
In sum, newer homes in developing communities
are more likely to have basement suites due to RG zoning compared to established communities (e.g.,
centre communities) who were established before RG zoning and were not initially built with basement
suites.
14
Note that Census 2021 data that would allow us to confirm this is not available by community. And, while Census 2016 data is
available, it does not encompass the developing communities.
15
See for example https://app.tricohomes.com/communities/seton
Calgary STR Listing Summary
• Despite the reduction in STR listings during the COVID-19 pandemic, STR listings in Calgary are
higher than ever and appear to be growing at the pre-COVID rates.
• The communities with the greatest number of STR listings are centre communities and developing
communities, while STR listing growth is primarily driven by developing communities such as Seton
Livingston, and Cornerstone, as well as the Beltline. These are the communities that likely
experience the greatest STR activity.
• The most frequent listing type in Calgary are entire apartment listings followed by basement
suites; however, this differs by community. Centre communities (e.g., the Beltline East Village,
Commercial Core) are more likely to have entire apartment listings, while developing communities
(e.g., Seton, Livingston, Cornerstone) are more likely to have basement suite listings, and “other”
communities have a more varied mix of listings. These differences are likely driven by the different
choice of housing in different communities and zoning.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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4. Demand Side: A Look at Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Bookings,
Occupancy Rate, and Community Impact
STR listings are only one side of the STR market – the supply side. In this section, we examine the demand
side of the STR market in Calgary. In particular, we examine the number of nightly bookings per month in
active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings, their occupancy rate, and STR-related complaints. We further
beak these down by communities. This will give us a sense of not just how many listings there are, but
how frequently they are visited by guests, particularly post-pandemic, and the impact on the peace of the
community.
4.1 Time Trends: Nightly Bookings
We begin by examining the number of nightly bookings in active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway per month
to determine whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected STR bookings in Calgary. In July 2023,
there were 96,723 nightly bookings in Calgary Airbnb’s and VRBOs/HomeAway’s—the highest number of
nightly bookings per month recorded. Figure 9 shows a time trend of the number of nightly bookings per
month in active Airbnb and VRBO listings for Calgary (left graph) and Edmonton (right graph) between
January 2017 and July 2023. The black line shows total bookings in an active listing, the blue line shows
bookings in active listings that are self-described by hosts as an “entire home/apartment”, and the red
line shows bookings in active listings that are self-described by hosts as “private rooms”.
16,17
Figure 9 shows that nightly bookings per month display a seasonal trend. In Calgary, bookings are always
highest during Stampede months (July) with another smaller peak in December. In Edmonton, bookings
are highest in July or August during Capital Ex with smaller peaks in December. This is consistent with
seasonal trends seen with active listings in Figure 1.
Further, while nightly bookings in Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway’s have increased over the time period
examined, this increase has not been consistent. Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings declined
in both cities beginning in early 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nightly bookings in both
cities began to recover in summer 2021. Calgary nightly bookings surpassed pre-pandemic levels in
October 2022, the same month the number of active listings surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Edmonton
nightly bookings surpassed pre-pandemic levels in March 2022, seven months before Calgary and three
months before their number of active listings surpassed pre-pandemic levels. This suggests a faster re-
bounding of demand in Edmonton compared to Calgary and compared to supply (e.g., listings).
As with listings, the majority of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings in Calgary and Edmonton
are in self-described “entire home/apartments” listings: around 82% of all Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
nightly bookings in July 2023 were in self-described “entire home/apartments” listings in both cities.
Nightly bookings in self-described private rooms are growing in both Calgary and Edmonton post-COVID;
however, as with listings, they have not yet reached pre-pandemic levels. This growth of nightly bookings
16
Note that active listings self-described as “shared rooms” are not shown as they make up less than 1% of active listings.
17
As we will show, these self-described listing types are not standardized. We standardize them based on manual inspections for
April 2023 – July 2023 and present the results below.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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in self-described private rooms appears to be somewhat stronger than the growth in active listings;
however, this will be examined in the section on occupancy rate.
Figure 9: Acve Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Nightly Bookings per Month, Calgary and Edmonton, January 2017 - July 2023
4.2 Year-Over-Year Change in Nightly Bookings
To examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the STR market in Calgary in closer detail, Figure 10
plots the number of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings per month year-over-year. The first
panel of Figure 10 only includes pre-pandemic years, 2017 to 2019. Each additional panel introduces one
additional post-pandemic year until all years are shown (2017 to 2023). This allows us to examine the
number of nightly bookings per month for each year in isolation.
In the top left panel of Figure 10, we see that from 2017 to 2019, Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly
bookings in Calgary grew steadily from 10,136 bookings in January 2017 to 41,455 bookings in December
2019 — a 309% increase in bookings. However, when the pandemic hit in March 2020, we see from the
top right figure, Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings in Calgary declined to below 2017 levels.
They remained below 2017 levels until August 2021 (middle left panel). In October 2022, the number of
Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings surpassed 2019 nightly bookings (at the same time as
listings shown in Figure 2). This growth trend has continued and increased into 2023. As the bottom right
panel shows, the number of nightly bookings in July 2023 was up 20,996 bookings (28%) from the number
of bookings in July 2019. As with active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings, this suggests that Airbnb
and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings are once again on a steadily increasing growth path in Calgary
despite being interrupted by the pandemic.
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Figure 10: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Nightly Bookings per Month, Year-Over-Year, Calgary, January 2017 - July 2023
4.3 Occupancy Rate
So far, we have documented that for both Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway active listings and nightly
bookings they have been back on pre-COVID growth paths. The question for this section is: what are the
relative growth rates? Have active listings and nightly bookings grown at the same rate or has one
outpaced the other? This is important because if there are more active listings than nightly bookings,
Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings may be quiet and have very little impact on the peace of a
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
26
community. However, if Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings are outpacing active listings, there
may be a higher level of traffic and turn-around that may be more disruptive to the peace of a community.
As suggested, we examine the occupancy rate. Occupancy rate is calculated by taking, for each individual
active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listing, the number of nightly bookings in a month divided by the
number of nights available in a month. For example, if an active listing is available 30 nights of a month
and is booked for 15 nights in the same month, the occupancy rate is 50%.
18
The “average occupancy rate”
is the average of the occupancy rate across all active Airbnb’s and VRBO’s/HomeAway’s in a month. Figure
11 shows the average occupancy rate of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings for Calgary (left
graph) and Edmonton (right graph) between January 2017 and June 2023. The black line shows average
occupancy rate across all listing types. The blue line shows the average occupancy rate in active listings
that are self-described by hosts as an “entire home/apartment”, and the red line shows the average
occupancy rate in active listings that are self-described by hosts as “private rooms”. In general, if active
listings have grown at a faster rate than nightly bookings, we expect to see a drop in the average
occupancy rate and vice versa.
Figure 11 shows the similar seasonal trends seen with active listings and nightly bookings. The average
occupancy rate is always highest in Stampede months (July) for Calgary and in July/August for Edmonton
(Capital Ex). Interestingly, there is no peak in occupancy rate in December suggesting there may be more
active listings available compared to nightly bookings.
Figure 11: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Average Occupancy Rate, Calgary and Edmonton, January 2017 - July 2023
Also, in recent months another interesting pattern has emerged. The average occupancy rate in Calgary
grew steadily pre-pandemic, and then, as with active listings and nightly bookings, it was interrupted by
the pandemic. The occupancy rate increased again between summer 2021 and summer 2022 in Calgary;
18
A host may “block” nights. If a night is blocked, that listing is not available for that blocked night.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
27
however, as of summer 2023, the occupancy rate has slowed and declined. In summer 2023, the
occupancy rate was lower than the occupancy rate in summer 2022 in Calgary. Likewise, for Edmonton,
the occupancy rate initially increased post-pandemic from 2020 to 2021; however, it has stagnated and
declined since then. This suggests that in Calgary as of summer 2023 and in Edmonton as of 2021/2022,
the growth in the number of active listings has outpaced the growth in nightly bookings per month: the
supply side has grown faster than the demand side. This same trend is observed for both self-described
entire home/apartment listings and for self-described private rooms.
4.4 Nightly Bookings and Occupancy Rate by Community
As seen with STR listings, these time trends that aggregate across Calgary hide community-level patterns
that are important to understanding the STR market. In this section, we examine Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway nightly bookings and occupancy rate by community. We examine both April 2023 and
July 2023. As seen in the time trend graphs, April tends to be a quieter month for the STR market while
July tends to be a busier month. Further, both April 2023 and July 2023 are post-COVID.
Figure 12 shows the number of bookings (left) and the occupancy rate (right) in April 2023 in Calgary by
community. Likewise, Figure 13 shows the number of bookings (left) and the occupancy rate (right) for
July 2023 in Calgary by community. Note that for occupancy rate, we have limited our examination to
those communities with more than five Airbnb’s and/or VRBO/HomeAway’s.
19
Table 3 shows the top 10
communities by bookings while Table 4 shows the top 10 communities occupancy rate, both for July 2023.
From these figures and graphs, we make several observations. First, unsurprisingly, the communities with
the most nightly bookings largely mirror the communities with the most active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings. These communities are all either in the centre or a developing community.
However, despite the fact that these communities have the most active listings and nightly bookings, they
do not necessarily have the highest occupancy rate. For example, the Beltline, which has the most active
Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings and nightly bookings, is only ranked 107
th
of 166 communities with
an occupancy rate of 74%. Regardless, the top 10 communities by nightly bookings in Table 3 all have an
occupancy rate of 67% or greater, indicating they were relatively busy STR communities in July 2023.
Second, the top 10 communities by occupancy rate are not in the top 10 lists for active listings nor nightly
bookings. Further, they have very few Airbnb or VRBO/HomeAway listings (25 or less), and none of them
are in centre communities. This suggests that, on the one hand, Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in
centre communities have more competition and thus may not have as high an occupancy rate as active
listings in less competitive communities. Furthermore, it suggests that Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway
listings in competitive STR communities are sought after by guests. This may be because of their location,
e.g., away from busier Stampede grounds, closer to family/friends, etc., or easier access, e.g., less parking
restrictions/more free parking.
19
There are some communities with only 1 or 2 STR listings with very high occupancy rates. This results in an irregularly high
occupancy rate, obscuring the general pattern.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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Figure 12: Bookings and Occupancy Rate by Community, April 2023
Figure 13: Bookings and Occupancy Rate by Community, July 2023
Finally, how much STR activity is in a community differs by time period. We present here data for July
2023 which is a snapshot in time. July is a very busy month for STRs due to stampede. Other months are
less busy. In looking at other months, the top 10 communities by nightly bookings only changes marginally.
For average occupancy rate, the change in the ranking of communities across time periods is more
substantial. For example, of the top 10 communities by occupancy rate in July 2023, zero of those are in
the top 10 communities by occupancy rate in April 2023, and they also have very few active listings and
nightly bookings. These temporal changes need to be kept in mind when considering the data.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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Table 3: Top 10 Communies by Nightly Bookings, July 2023
Community
Number of
Nightly
Bookings
Occupancy
Rate
Sector
Community
Status
(2021)
BELTLINE
12,408
.74
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
LIVINGSTON
2,246
.76
NORTH
DEVELOPING
SETON
2,008
.77
SOUTHEAST
DEVELOPING
CRESCENT HEIGHTS
1,898
.75
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
SUNNYSIDE
1,838
.78
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
DOWNTOWN EAST VILLAGE
1,572
.85
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
CORNERSTONE
1,493
.86
NORTHEAST
DEVELOPING
CHINATOWN
1,326
.67
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
BRIDGELAND/RIVERSIDE
1,273
.69
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
BOWNESS
1,204
.75
NORTHWEST
ESTABLISHED
Table 4: Top 10 Communies by Occupancy Rate, July 2023
Community
Average
Occupancy
Rate
Number
of
Listings
Number of
Bookings
Sector
Community
Status
(2021)
VISTA HEIGHTS
.94
7
145
NORTHEAST
ESTABLISHED
CEDARBRAE
.93
10
233
SOUTH
ESTABLISHED
RUNDLE
.93
10
157
NORTHEAST
ESTABLISHED
SILVERADO
.92
22
368
SOUTH
DEVELOPING
MIDNAPORE
.91
9
106
SOUTH
ESTABLISHED
SCENIC ACRES
.91
19
349
NORTHWEST
ESTABLISHED
MILLRISE
.90
6
127
SOUTH
ESTABLISHED
COUNTRY HILLS
VILLAGE
.89
7
153
NORTH
ESTABLISHED
MACEWAN GLEN
.89
8
93
NORTH
ESTABLISHED
HASKAYNE
.88
25
557
NORTHWEST
DEVELOPING
4.5 Community Impacts: Complaints by Community
In this section, we examine whether and how the busier STR communities identified above affect their
communities. In particular, we look at complaints by community.
20
To do this, we count the total number
of complaints to by-law that are STR related from May 2022 to April 2023. We use a year’s worth of
complaints as there are very few complaints in any given month. We focus on the total number of
complaints as we are concerned here with community impact: the number of complaints indicates the
total level of community disruption. Complaints range from noise-related to untidy private/public
20
This data was provided to us from the City Calgary and covers the period from January 2018 to April 2023 by community. It
includes all complaints made to the City of Calgary 311 line (e.g., non-emergency by-law services) that includes the mention of
an STR or related phrasing (e.g., Airbnb, VRBO, etc.).
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
30
property, to ice/snow on sidewalk and unkept lawn and weeds. Overall, over this time frame, there were
1,031 complaints, with 175 (17%) of those being noise complaints.
Figure 14 shows the total number of complaints over May 2022 to April 2023 by community while Table
5 lists the top 10 communities by number of STR-related complaints. The Beltline has the most complaints
by far, with 77 complaints from May 2022 to April 2023 (and 58 (75%) of those are noise complaints). The
community with the second most number of complaints was Crescent Heights with a total of 62
complaints from May 2022 to April 2023.
Surprisingly, other communities with a large number of listings have relatively fewer complaints. For
example, Seton and Livingston—which both had a high number of STR listings and were some of the
fastest growing communities with respect to STR listings—had few complaints. Seton had six STR-related
complaints and Livingston had 15 STR-related complaints from May 2022 to April 2023.
Figure 14: Number of STR-Related Complaints by Community, May 2022 – April 2023
Table 5: Top 10 Communies by Number of Complaints, May 2022 - April 2023
Community
Number of
Complaints
Sector
Community
Status (2021)
BELTLINE
77
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
CRESCENT HEIGHTS
62
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
HILLHURST
30
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
BANKVIEW
28
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
CITADEL
27
NORTHWEST
ESTABLISHED
BOWNESS
21
NORTHWEST
ESTABLISHED
BANFF TRAIL
20
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
ACADIA
18
SOUTH
ESTABLISHED
SUNALTA
17
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
HIDDEN VALLEY
16
NORTH
ESTABLISHED
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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We hypothesize that this difference across communities is associated with listing type. That is, we
hypothesize that communities with a higher percentage of entire apartment and entre multi-family unit
STRs will have more complaints than communities with a higher percentage of entire basement suites,
entire upper suites, and entire single detached house STRs.
21
This is because entire apartment and entre
multi-family unit STRs are potentially in closer contact with non-STR related residents whereas entire
basement suites, upper suites, and entire single detached house STRs are somewhat removed from
interactions with non-STR related residents. To verify this, we examine the correlation between the
percentage of listings in a community by listing type (as re-categorized by us and shown in Figure 3) and
the total number of STR-related complaints in a community. We find that the sign of the correlation
coefficient verifies this hypothesis: a higher percentage of entire apartment and entre multi-family unit
STRs is associated with an increase in STR-related complaints whereas a higher percentage of entire
basement suites, upper suites, and entire single detached house STRs is correlated with a decline in the
number of STR-related complaints. It should be noted that these correlations were not statistically
significant except for the correlation between total complaints and the percentage of entire apartments.
Together, this information leads to the following observations. Communities with a higher number of
complaints tend to be located in the centre and have a relatively high number of active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings. The number of active listings is only partially contributing to this result as not
all communities with a large number of active listings have a large number of STR-related complaints,
particularly in developing communities. These results may be correlated with the type of listings that are
more prevalent in communities. Particularly, an increase in the percentage of listings that are suites or
entire single detached houses are correlated with less complaints while an increase in the percentage of
listings that are entire apartments or entire multi-family units are correlated with more complaints.
21
Note that we look at the percentage of listing type as opposed to the number by listing type. What we want to know is how
the composition of STR listings (not the number) affects the total number of complaints.
Calgary Nightly Bookings and Occupancy Rate: Summary
• While the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the growth of nightly bookings, growth has resumed
post-COVID, particularly for self-described entire home/apartment listings.
• However, this growth in nightly bookings has been slightly slower in recent months than the
growth in active listings as indicated by the recent decline in the occupancy rate. This suggests that
the supply of STR’s is outstripping demand somewhat.
• Unsurprisingly, by community, nightly bookings are concentrated in communities with more active
listings. Communities with the most nightly bookings are located in centre communities and
developing communities, and, while they do not have the highest occupancy rates, they do have
high (69%+) occupancy rates, indicating significant STR traffic in these communities.
• Communities with more STR-related complaints tend to be located in centre communities, have a
higher number of active listings and nightly bookings, and have a higher percentage of listings that
are entire apartment or entire multi-family unit listings. The overall business of the STR and the
proximity to non-STR related neighbors both appear to matter.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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5. Monetary Incentives: Revenues of
Airbnb and VRBO Listings
In this section, we examine revenues made by Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway hosts in Calgary. Along with
being another indicator of market size, STR revenues have also been found in the STR literature to vary by
community, potentially indicating communities with higher STR potential. Thus, we examine both the
general revenue time trend followed by a spatial analysis of revenues.
5.1 Revenue Time Trends
In July 2023 alone, Calgary Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway active listings earned collectively $22.1 million
CAD. While this is a large number, it should be remembered that this is revenue, not profit. Out of this
revenue, hosts cover fees such as cleaning fees and utilities, as well as various government taxes and
levies, including GST (if applicable), property taxes, income taxes, and the Alberta Tourism Levy.
22
Since January 2017, the revenue earned by Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway hosts has increased. Figure 15
shows this increase in revenue for all Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings (black line), self-described
entire home/apartments (blue line), and self-described private rooms (red line) in both Calgary (right
panel) and Edmonton (left panel). In Calgary, total revenue grew from $0.9 million in January 2017 to
$22.1 million in July 2023: an increase of over 2,000%. As with active listings and nightly bookings, Figure
15 shows that while the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the growth of revenues, since about summer
2021, total revenues have continued their upward trend and are higher than ever before. However, this
should be interrupted with caution. Given the high inflation in 2023 and the increasing government taxes
(including the introduction of the Alberta Tourism Levy effective in April 2021), the cost of operating an
STR are also higher than ever before.
1.1 Revenue by Community
In July 2023, Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway active listings made an average revenue of $4,047/month in
Calgary (after removing listings which made zero revenue). However, average listing revenue varies by
community
23
and by listing type. To examine average listing revenue by community, we again show a heat
graph of average revenue by community for July 2023 in Figure 16. In Panel A, we include only entire
home/apartments (as manually verified by us). In Panel B, we include only entire apartments, Panel C
includes only entire suites (upper or basement), and Panel D includes only entire detached houses or
entire multi-family units (townhouses, duplexes, and triplexes). Table 6 shows the top 10 communities by
average revenue per active entire unit listing. For all, we only show communities where there are five or
more of the listing type in the community.
22
Our data does not include information on the costs of operating an STR.
23
Note that we do not show total STR revenue by community here. Usurpingly, it largely follows the same pattern seen in the
listings and nightly bookings analysis previously with centre communities like the Beltline and developing communities such as
Seton and Livingston, being top earners.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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Figure 15: Acve Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Revenues, Calgary and Edmonton, January 2017 - July 2023
The first observation to make is that communities with more active listings and more nightly bookings do
not necessarily have a higher average revenue per listings. For example, entire unit listings in the Beltline
earned on average $5,577/month—less than half the average revenue earned by entire unit listings in
New Brighton ($12,761/month). Active listings in Seton and Livingston earned even less on average
($2,872/month and $3,771/month, respectively).
Second, of the top 10 communities by average revenue per entire unit listing, centre communities make
up six of them. However, this is weighted by the disproportionately high average revenue per entire suite
listings and per entire detached house listing in those same centre communities. Entire apartment listings
in centre communities do not earn as much on average as entire apartment listings outside of centre
communities.
Finally, entire detached house and entire multi-family listings made the highest average revenue in
general whereas entire suites earn the lowest average revenue.
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34
Figure 16: Average Revenue by Community, July 2023
Table 6: Top 10 Communies by Average Revenue per Enre Unit Acve Lisng, July 2023
Community
Average Revenue Per
Active Listing
Sector
Community Status
(2021)
NEW BRIGHTON
$12,761
SOUTHEAST
ESTABLISHED
PARKHILL
$10,146
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
SCARBORO
$9,566
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
ELBOW PARK
$9,439
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
WINSTON
HEIGHTS/MOUNTVIEW
$8,757
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
ERLTON
$8,256
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
HILLHURST
$8,171
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
VARSITY
$7,887
NORTHWEST
ESTABLISHED
TARADALE
$7,061
NORTHEAST
ESTABLISHED
FAIRVIEW
$6,952
SOUTH
ESTABLISHED
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
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2. Business License Compliance
Since STR regulations were enacted in Calgary in February 2020, STR operators are required to have a
business license and post that business license number on all listings associated with that STR. In our
Phase 1 report, we found that in January 2022, only 23% of all active Airbnb listings in Calgary had a
business license number listed, suggesting a low compliance rate. As of summer 2023, Airbnb changed
the process for creating a new STR listing in Calgary: a new listing must now complete the business license
field. While Airbnb does not determine whether or not the business license entered is valid (e.g., listed
with the City), it has increased compliance with both registering for a business license and with posting
the business license number on Airbnb listings.
As of July 2022, there were 1,087 STR business licenses registered with the City of Calgary and 4,159 active
Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings. As a rough estimate, this suggests that at most 26% of active listings
were licensed. This result is similar to what we found in our Phase 1 report in January 2022 when we
manually checked Airbnb listings for business license postings. As of July 2023, there were 4,280 STR
(active) business licenses registered with the City of Calgary, suggesting at most 75% of active listings were
licensed. This is a large improvement in apparent compliance.
While the above results are for apparent compliance, we improve the accuracy of the measure of
compliance by examining the active Airbnb/VRBO listings themselves and the business license numbers
they are posting. As of April 2023, we have data for each Airbnb listing that includes a scrape of the
business license field (note: there is no business license field for VRBO/HomeAway—an issue onto itself).
Calgary Short-Term Rental Revenues: Summary
• The total revenue earned by Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway hosts has largely mirrored the
time trends of active listings and nightly bookings: while COVID-19 interrupted the
growth of total revenue, as of 2023, STR is growing again and is higher than ever. It should
be noted that, while this is true, the cost of operating an STR is also higher than ever, and
we cannot observe costs.
• Communities that make the highest revenue per listing on average are located primarily
in centre communities but are not necessarily communities with the highest number of
active listings or nightly bookings. Active listings in developing communities are not top
revenue earners (on average).
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
36
We clean the scraped field to improve potential matches,
24
and then match active Airbnb listings to the
City of Calgary business license data. We then check those matches for validity.
In July 2023, there were 5,384 active Airbnb listings. Of those, 4,659 active Airbnb listings had something
written into the business license field on their platform (87% of active Airbnb listings). Of those active
Airbnb listings with something written into the business license field, 105 of those had declared their
listing “exempt” from business license requirements (2.0% of active Airbnb listings). As we have removed
all traditional tourist accommodations, the only possible reason for an exemption is that these active
listings are not STR’s but are long-term rentals advertising on Airbnb. We cannot verify the veracity of this;
however, we provide them the benefit of the doubt and take their claim as true. Of the remaining active
Airbnb listings with a business license number in their posting that are not exempt, only 4,257 (79% of
active Airbnb listings) could be matched to a business license registered with the City of Calgary. Of those
that could not be matched, the business license field included phone numbers, business id’s, and fake
business license numbers (e.g., BL000000, BL123456, BL131177, BL225959). Of those that we could
match, 3,854 had a non-expired, non-rejected, non-cancelled license number: 403 had expired, cancelled,
rejected, or not yet operational license (e.g., license issue date in August) numbers. Of the licenses we
could match and which were non-expired, non-rejected, and non-cancelled, 87 of those license numbers
appear to be inappropriately spanning multiple active listings (181 listings) that are not related (e.g., an
entire apartment in the Beltline and an entire apartment in Bankview).
25
Overall, we estimate that 3,760
active Airbnb listings have a valid business license and that an additional 105 were exempt—a compliance
rate of about 72%. This is very close to the rough compliance rate calculated previously. Figure 17 provides
a visualization of this breakdown.
Figure 17: Acve Airbnb Lisngs, Compliance with Business License Regulaons, July 2023
24
E.g., we insert “BL” for listings that have omitted the “BL” and we remove extraneous characters and spaces (“#”).
25
This number is very conservative. I only counted those business license numbers that spanned more than one entire
home/apartment (as manually re-coded by us) where the number of bedrooms were the same. This means if one business license
number was included for multiple private rooms, it would not pick these up. And if one business license number was included for
multiple suites, it would not pick these up.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
37
Overall, this suggests that compliance with obtaining and posting a business license has improved
substantially between January/July 2022 and July 2023. While compliance is not perfect, it is high. This is
likely a result of efforts on the part of Airbnb to require hosts to enter a business license number and the
efforts on the part of the City to make licensing requirements known. Compliance could likely be improved
with minimal effort if other STR platforms (e.g., VRBO) were to also include a business license field.
3. A Portrait of Short-Term Rental Hosts in
Calgary
An oft-reported concern is that platforms like Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway have “commercialized” the
STR market. There are two interrelated concerns. The first concern, often highlighted in public spaces such
as the media and on social media, is STR hosts go out and purchase properties with the sole purpose of
operating them as an STR, taking housing off the market. The worry is that individual investors and foreign
investors are inflating the demand for housing and are not using that housing for permanent residents.
The second concern often highlighted in the literature is the ‘platformism’ of the STR market: the role of
Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway is no longer to simply connect hosts and guests but rather to provide a
platform that can be leveraged by professionalized hosts, such as professionalized property managers.
This moves away from the ‘home-sharing’ narrative, whereby small individual hosts can share their
underused space, to a market with market power and industry concentration held by professionalized
property managers (e.g., Cocola-Grant et al. 2021). These two concerns are interlinked: as platformism of
the STR market is improved, this may incentivize investors to make use of professionalized property
managers to increase their profits from purchasing investment property. Overall, this can lead to two
effects on the local housing market: (1) a reduction of the housing stock available for permanent residents,
and (2) increased rents and housing prices.
In the remainder of this report, we look at the first effect: the reduction of the housing stock available for
permanent residents. This effect can be estimated. The second effects (increased rents and housing
prices) requires more sophisticated econometric modelling which is outside the scope of this report.
To look at the first effect, the idea is to identify STR listings that do not fit the ‘home-sharing’ narrative,
and that are dedicated STRs which are not used for permanent residents at any time. Typically, three
indicators are examined: the share of entire home/apartment listings, multi-listing hosts, and full-time
listings, as well as the interaction between these indicators (e.g., Combs, Kerrigan, and Wachsmuth 2020;
Kadi, Plank, and Seidl 2022). An oft overlooked issue in the examination of these indicators is the
identification of property managers: property managers have been shown to control a large segment of
the STR market in other jurisdictions (Cocola-Grant et al. 2021), and thus we include them here along with
an examination of the commonly-examined indicators. In previous sections, we examined entire
home/apartment listings. In this section, we focus on hosts. In the next section, we focus on full-time
listings, and, to conclude, we examine the interaction between these.
To examine the concern of commercialization, we begin by looking at hosts and their profiles. We first use
a novel method to examine who the current hosts are (e.g., what is their “host type”). As suggested,
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
38
property owners may use professional property managers to manage their STR listings, and those
property managers may be listed as the host on STR platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway. We
manually examine and categorize hosts as individuals or property managers to measure the extent of
property manager operations in the market. However, these results should be approached with caution.
While we manually categorize hosts into property managers and individuals, and thus we believe we
improve on the existing data analysis, our approach still faces a methodological issue. It is possible that
property managers do not have a host profile or host id on the STR platforms. That is, their listings may
appear to belong to single-listing individuals/hosts with the host id belonging to the property owner. For
example, Cocola-Grant et al. (2021) find that in the case of Porto Concierge, a professional management
firm in Portugal, they manage over 700 STR listings yet do not have an Airbnb host id. The degree of
professionalization is likely higher than what we are able to document despite our novel approach.
Second, we examine the more common indicators of “multi-listing hosts”. That is, we examine how many
hosts operate multiple listings. Again, we use a novel approach by using our manually re-coded listing
type, combined with information on communities and business licenses. This ensures we are conservative
in categorizing a host as a multi-listing hosts. We further include hosts with multiple private room listings
as multi-listing hosts as it is possible these are “ghost hotels” where all the rooms in a dwelling are part of
an Airbnb hotel. Multi-listing hosts are more likely to be “commercialized” hosts as it is likely that these
hosts do not live in one or all of the STR listings they operate: this suggests they have bought one or more
properties for the sole purpose of listing them as an STR.
Finally, we nuance our multi-listing host results by examining the host type of multi-listing hosts. Some
hosts that operate multiple STR listings are potentially property managers: they themselves do not own
nor rent the property underlying the listing, rather they manage the listing on the owner’s or renter’s
behalf. As suggested, these hosts are not necessarily going out and buying up properties with the sole
intent of running them as an STR. However, they may be encouraging commercialization of the STR market
in that they incentivize potential investors to purchase STR-dedicated properties. This helps us measure
the level of platformism of the STR market in Calgary.
As suggested, to do this analysis, we take a novel approach to the data. We manually examine every
Airbnb host with an active listing in Calgary. Based on this manual inspection, we categorize hosts into the
following:
• Individuals: This is the default type. If there is not indicator to categorize the host as a corporate
host, property manager, or associated with a traditional tourist accommodation, they are
categorized as an individual.
• Property Manager: Manages listings on behalf of the owners but does not themselves own the
property in the listing. There must be a clear indication in the profile or on their website (if
applicable) that they are managing for others.
• Other:
- Hosts that are corporations but are not a traditional tourist accommodation
(hotel/motel/inn/B&B/lodge, etc.) or property managers; OR
- Host that are online agencies (e.g., Red Awning) that offer vacation packages that include the
rental of an STR
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
39
We also manually identified hosts with more than one host account. While this process is not perfect, it
allows us to allocate listings across multiple host accounts to one host, particularly for those hosts with a
significant number of STR listings. It should also be noted that in this analysis, VRBO/HomeAway listings
were removed because hosts do not have to identify themselves on VRBO/HomeAway: only Airbnb hosts
and listings are included.
3.1 Host Profile: Property Managers
In July 2023, there were 3,034 unique hosts operating 5,385 active Airbnb listings in Calgary, averaging to
about 1.8 listings per host. However, this differs by host type and month. Figure 18 shows the number of
hosts by host type (right panel) and the average number of listings by host type (left panel) for active
listings in Calgary from January 2017 to July 2023 (for those we could identify/had not taken down their
profiles at the time of manual checking). We see that individual hosts make up the majority of Airbnb
hosts at any given time; however, they also operate the fewest average number of listings (1.6 in July
2023). Property managers are far fewer in number (115 in July 2023); however, as of summer 2021, they
operate the highest average number of listings in any given month (5.98 in July 2023). While the average
number of listings for both individuals and property managers have increased over the time period
examined, the average number of listings for property managers has experienced the strongest growth in
absolute terms, increasing from 2.09 listings to 5.98 listings (186% increase).
Figure 18: Hosts of Acve Airbnb Lisngs, Calgary, January 2017 - July 2023
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
40
To examine the share of the market held by the different host types, Figure 19 shows, in Panel A, the
percent of hosts by host type. Panel B shows the percent of active Airbnb listings operated by different
host types, and Panel C shows the percent of Airbnb revenue by host type. All graphs range from January
2017 to July 2023. Figure 19 shows that while property managers make up a small share of hosts (3.8% in
July 2023), the operate a disproportionate share of listings (12.8% in July 2023) and earn a
disproportionate share of the revenue (19.5% in July 2023). Furthermore, over time, the share of the
Airbnb market controlled by property managers has been increasing slowly despite some minor seasonal
fluctuations. Together, these graphs suggest a non-negligible role of property managers in the Calgary
Airbnb market. These numbers likely understate the control of the Airbnb market by property managers
as it is likely most property managers do not have a unique Airbnb host id but manage the individual host
id of the property owner.
Figure 19: Proporon Airbnb Market by Host Type, Calgary, January 2017 - July 2023
3.2 Multi-Listing Hosts
While we now have a better understanding of who Calgary hosts are, we next turn our attention to multi-
listing hosts. In the literature, a multi-listing host is defined as a host that operates two or more (self-
described) entire home/apartment STR listings or three or more (self-described) private rooms (Combs,
Kerrigan, and Wachsmuth 2020, 13). However, we find this definition problematic. As argued previously,
hosts often mis-categorize their own STR listing or create a variety of listings for the same property. For
example, for a two-bedroom basement suite, there could be a listing for an “entire home/apartment”
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
41
that includes only one bedroom of the basement suite and another “entire home/apartment” listing that
includes both bedrooms in the basement suite. This host would be identified as a multi-listing host in the
literature; however, it is likely that this is not a commercial operation. The host could live on the main
floor and occasionally use the basement suite for their own purposes: it is more likely an increase in the
use of an otherwise underused space.
We conceptualize a multi-listing host as a host that has a least one dedicated STR that they could not
possibly use as their primary residence and where the host cannot be a live-in host. For example, if a host
has two entire apartment listings, it is possible that one of the apartment listings is their primary
residence, but the second listing cannot be their primary residence and is more likely to be a dedicated
STR, thus they classify as a multi-listing host. Further, a host that lists both an upper suite and a basement
suite in a house may use the upper suite as their primary residence. Since the host may be a live-in host,
this host does not classify as a multi-listing host.
To operationalize this conceptualization of a multi-listing host, we construct two types of multi-listing
hosts. The first type must have two or more entire units of any kind (e.g., single detached house, multi-
family unit, apartment, suite) AND have STR listings in different communities OR have different business
license numbers for their listings. For example, if a host lists two basement suites and the suites are
located in different communities (e.g., one in Seton and one in Livingston), the host may use one of the
private dwellings where one of the suites is located as their primary residence, but this could not apply to
both suites: at least one suite is a dedicated STR where the host is not a live-in host. The second type of
multi-listing host must have four or more private rooms. These private rooms can be in the same
community/have the same business license number. This is intended to capture the Airbnb hotels. We
increase the number of private rooms to four (compared to three in the literature) to be a multi-listing
host as 31% of private dwellings in Calgary have 4+ bedrooms: using a benchmark of three may
overestimate multi-listing hosts based on private rooms given the prevalence of 4+ bedroom houses in
Calgary.
Thus, a multi listing host must meet the following conditions:
• Two or more entire apartment listings, entire single detached house listings, entire suites, and/or
entire multi-family unit listings;
AND
• Of the multiple listings identified, they must be in two or more different communities in Calgary,
• OR have two or more different business license numbers.
OR
• Four or more private rooms.
Note that for the listing type, these are our manually re-categorized listing types and not the self-
described listing types provided by the hosts due to the misspecification of listing types by hosts. This
limits us to only examining April 2023 to July 2023. Further, we only use Airbnb hosts as we found that in
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
42
some instances, there may be two listings (one Airbnb, one VRBO) for the same listing: the host has not
property synched their listings and the AirDNA scrape treats them as separate listings. We remove the
VRBO/HomeAway listings so that multi-listing hosts are not overcounted (given that VRBO has much fewer
listings than Airbnb). Finally, this is a conservative definition of multi-listing host, but it does pick up the
hosts that very clearly are operating multiple STR’s, and not just advertising one property as multiple
different listings.
Using this method, Figure 20 plots the percentage of Airbnb hosts in Calgary that are multi-listing hosts
(blue bar), the percentage of listings held by multi-listing hosts (red bar), and the percentage of revenue
earned by multi-listing hosts (green bar). Figure 20 shows that while relatively few hosts are multi-listing
hosts (11.9% in July 2023), they hold a disproportionately large share of listings (41.3% in July 2023) and
earn a disproportionately large amount of the total revenue (51.9% in July 2023).
Figure 20: Mul-Lisng Hosts, Calgary, April 2023 - July 2023
The percentage of multi-listing hosts is larger in 2023 than what was found in our Phase 1 report. In the
Phase 1 report, we reported that 7.7% of hosts were multi-listing hosts in June 2021. However, these
numbers are not comparable. We used different techniques to determine whether a host is a multi-listing
host or not. In the Phase 1 report, we counted a host as a multi-listing host if they had two or more self-
described entire home/apartment rentals. Here, we use our re-coded listing types and we apply a second
condition of having listings in separate communities or separate business license numbers. Although the
numbers are not comparable, the technique used here is more conservative than that used in the Phase
1 report. This suggests that multi-listing hosts have substantially increased and increased their control of
the STR market in Calgary since June 2021.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
43
3.3 Multi-Listing Hosts and Host Type
As we have documented, multi-listing hosts in Calgary operate a disproportionally large percentage of
listings and earn a disproportionally large percentage of total revenue. To examine to what extent this is
a result of platformism, we examine multi-listing hosts by host type: how many are individuals and how
many are property managers?
Figure 21 shows these statistics for multi-listing hosts in Calgary. Panel A shows the percent of multi-listing
hosts by host type. Panel B shows the percent of listings held by multi-listing hosts by host type. And Panel
C shows the percent of revenue earned by multi-listing hosts by host type. Note that for all, the
denominator only includes hosts/listings/revenue by multi-listing hosts and omits hosts/listings/revenue
by non-multi-listing hosts.
Figure 21 shows that the majority of multi-listing hosts are individuals (80% in July 2023) and they hold
the majority of listings held by multi-listings hosts (68% in July 2023) and earn the highest percentage of
revenue earned by multi-listing hosts (61% in July 2023). A smaller percentage of multi-listing hosts are
property managers (16% in July 2023), but they hold a disproportionately high share of listings held by
multi-listing hosts (28% in July 2023) and earn a disproportionate large amount of revenue earned by
multi-listing hosts (34% in July 2023). These percentages for property managers have been decreasing
since April 2023.
These results suggest that platformism is playing a role in the Calgary STR market: Airbnb is being
leveraged by professionalized hosts, such as professionalized property managers. However, this role of
Airbnb is either declining or professional property managers are becoming more likely to post their listings
as individual hosts (e.g., using the host id of the property owner instead of their own).
Figure 21: Mul-Lisng Hosts by Host Type, Calgary
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
44
6. Full Time Listings: A New Approach
In examining the commercialization of the STR market, along with multi-listing hosts, full-time listings are
also typically examined. Full-time STRs are defined as STRs that are booked and available for some period
of time. Wachsmuth et al. (2017, 22) suggests a full-time listings is booked for 60 days per year and
available or booked 120 days per year, while more recent literature suggests a full time listing is booked
for 90 days per year and available or booked 183 days per year (Wachsmuth 2023). As the argument goes,
full-time STR units remove housing from the market (Wachsmuth et al. 2017). The problem with this
argument is that the subjective thresholds of 60/90 days booked and 120/183 days available may not
accurately reflect a full-time STR. Particularly, in a city like Calgary, some residents may be scholars who
visit other post-secondary institutions for a term (4 months or 120 days) and list their primary residences
in Calgary for the term they are gone. Other residents may choose to live in warmer climates during the
winter months, and, while they are away for those few months, list their primary residence as a STR.
Regardless of the exact reason, the 60/90 days booked and 120/183 days available threshold that defines
a full-time STR may be too low a threshold for full-time STRs. Arbitrarily setting some threshold does not
take into account seasonal patterns and culture, which may differ by geographical location.
A second problem with this definition of full-time STRs is that it attempts to combine distinct dimensions
of duration: spells and spell duration. A spell is a continuous period of time spent in a certain condition.
With respect to STR’s, a spell is a continuous period of time listed as an STR. An STR listing may be listed
for multiple spells, coming on and off of STR platforms. The second attribute is spell duration: the length
of time spent in a single spell. For STR’s in our data, we use two measures of spell duration. First, we use
the number of months an STR is actively listed/available to be booked/is booked on an STR platform within
a distinct spell. When a new spell starts, spell duration begins at one. However, an STR is not necessarily
A Portrait of Short-Term Rental Hosts in Calgary: Summary
• The majority of Airbnb hosts in Calgary are individuals who operate, on average, 1.6 listings
per host. Property managers, while fewer than individual hosts, operate more listings per host
(about 6 per host).
• Multi-listing hosts make up a small share of hosts in the Calgary market but control a
significant share of the market: 12% of hosts are multi-listing hosts, and they earn 52% of the
revenue.
• Of multi-listing hosts, the majority are individuals. Property managers make up a smaller
share of multi-listing hosts and their share of the market has been declining. This may be due to
the declining role of property managers or a change in the way property managers market their
listings.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
45
booked/available to be booked all days of a month. Thus, second, we use the average number of days an
STR is booked/available to be booked during a distinct spell.
26
These separate dimensions are important because they demonstrate different patterns of use. For
example, while an STR may be actively listed for 120 days in the last year, those 120 days may be spread
over 12 different spells of 10 days each, or they may be concentrated into one spell. The first example (12
spells over 10 days) could be a shift worker who works in the oil sands listing their primary residence while
they are away at work. The second example (one spell of 120 days) could suggest a person who leaves
Calgary for a four-month summer vacation and lists their primary residence while they are away.
Moreover, refuting the argument made in the literature, it is likely that neither of these STRs would
become long-term rentals (LTRs) and it is unlikely that these STRs are removing housing from the LTR or
owner-occupied market. By combining spells and spell duration into one indicator, e.g., 60 days
booked/120 days available, this pattern of use is overlooked, and likely overstates how many units are
potentially removed from the housing market by STRs.
We address these issues by using a cluster analysis to remove the arbitrariness of setting a full-time
threshold, and which takes into account different dimensions of duration. We let a computer algorithm
determine, based on the patterns of past and present STR listings, what constitutes a “full-time” STR
(which we call “permanent”). For our cluster analysis, we follow the method popularized in Kuhn and
Culhane (1988) and used in Aubry et al. (2013), that used a cluster analysis to assess typology and patterns
of homelessness. We apply this method to STR listings in the City of Calgary and the City of Edmonton to
assess STR typology and patterns of STR listings.
We hypothesize that there are four distinct typologies of STR listings.
1. Temporary: these have few spells, shorter spell durations of fewer months with fewer days
booked/available to be booked per month. These are more likely to be people taking advantage
of their own (temporary and not always re-occurring) vacation plans to list their house as an
STR, e.g., during Stampede, or over (week-long/two week) summer or Christmas holidays.
2. Term: these STRs have few spells with a mid-length number of months per spell and more days
booked/available to be booked per month. These may be snow birds who leave colder Canadian
climates for the winter, or academics or other occupations/industries who leave Calgary for a
term or season, and these are not necessarily re-occurring.
3. Shift: these STRs have many spells with a mid-length number of months per spell and fewer days
on average per month where the listing is booked/available to be booked. These may be shift
workers (e.g., oil sand workers or airline stewards) who are out of town for reoccurring, short
shifts.
4. Permanent: these are “full-time” or “entrenched” STRs with only a few spells, but each spell is of
a long duration for many months with close to 30 days where the listing is booked/available to
be booked per month.
Of these, the first three (temporary, terms, shifts) are unlikely to be properties that would be used for
long-term rentals if STRs were banned: they are non-permanent listings. They are more likely to be used
26
Due to the set-up of our data, we cannot create spells based on the continuous number of days booked/available to be booked.
Instead, we create spells based on the continuous number of months listed and include in the cluster algorithm the average
number of days a listing is booked/available to be booked within a month.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
46
as a residence for the property owner/renter when it is not listed as an STR. The permanent listings are
more likely to be used as a long-term rental if STRs were banned: they are less likely to be used as a
residence for the property owner/renter.
6.1 Method
We use the longitudinal nature of the AirDNA data, composed of Calgary and Edmonton active Airbnb and
VRBO/HomeAway listings from August 2015 to July 2023. We make corrections for both right and left
censoring. For left censoring, we remove STRs that were “created” before August 2015. We can only do
this for Airbnbs but not for VRBO’s (VRBO’s do not have a “created” date). As a robustness check, we
remove VRBO’s. Left-censoring bias would cause some STRs to show much less “active” time than they
do: it could show episodic or permanent STRs as transitory by missing unrecorded days and episodes.
Similarly, to account for right censoring, we remove STRs who entered the system at least 1 year before
July 2023 (the end of the data), allowing each STR to have at least one year of exposure. Finally, “duration”
is counted at the month level as this is how our data is structured.
Cluster analysis uses nearest centroid sorting based on Euclidean distance to construct unique clusters
given a specified number of clusters (four in this case). This provides robust and well-defined divisions
between groups. We use Stata’s “cluster” command with k-means clustering (e.g., an iterative process)
and the standardized values of total spells, total duration (in months), and average spell duration (in
months) per spell. Standardized values (to a mean 0 and standard deviation of 1) are used as opposed to
actual values because average spell duration has a wider range and higher maximum value compared to
total spells. Standardization ensures that the variables are scaled similarly and have equal weighting in
the cluster analysis. Cluster analyses was conducted based on the hypothesis that the optimal solution
would yield three distinct clusters of STR listings, each with the specific pattern as suggested above. After
the STR listings are clustered into a group, we use a MANOVA test to test whether total spells, total
duration (in months), and average spell duration (in months) are statistically significantly different
between clusters. Finally, we end by comparing the generated clusters on their listing characteristics
variables that are available in either the property or monthly files.
6.2 Results
Overall, the cluster analysis produced four distinct groups of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings with
the characteristics as expected. The different characteristics of the groups are reported in Table 7. Term
listings in both Calgary and Edmonton make up the majority of listings: 48 - 51% of listings in both cities
are term listings. They generally experience just under 2 spells with each spell being an average of just
over 5 months per spell and are booked or available to be booked an average of 27 days per month.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
47
Table 7: Cluster Analysis Results, All Unique Acve Lisngs from Aug. 2015 - July 2023 created aer Aug. 2015 and on or before
July 2022
27
Temporary
Term
Shift
Permanent
Calgary
Edmonton
Calgary
Edmonton
Calgary
Edmonton
Calgary
Edmonton
Number (%) of
Unique Listings
5,318
(31%)
2,510
(29%)
8,597
(48%)
4,342
(51%)
1,679
(10%)
770
(9%)
1,789
(10%)
959
(11%)
Number of Spells
(mean (S.D.))
2.2
(1.1)
2.2
(1.0)
1.6
(0.8)
1.5
(0.7)
6.6
(1.9)
6.6
(2.0)
1.4
(0.7)
1.3
(0.6)
Average number of
months per spell
(mean (S.D.))
3.8
(3.0)
4.3
(3.4)
5.2
(3.7)
5.6
(4.1)
4.8
(2.7)
5.1
(2.7)
23.9
(10.3)
26.0
(11.2)
Average Number of
Days Available +
Booked in a month
(mean(S.D.))
15.6
(4.7)
15.6
(4.7)
26.9
(3.0)
26.9
(3.0)
17.7
(4.6)
17.6
(4.4)
25.7
(3.7)
26.2
(3.5)
Temporary listings make up between 29-31% of listings in Calgary and Edmonton. In Calgary, these are
only temporarily on the market, averaging two spells per listing for a duration of 3.8 months and 16 days
of availability per month. These can be thought of as listings that hosts may put onto the market during
Stampede or during Christmas holidays when they leave town for their own vacations.
Shift listings are less common than term and temporary listings. They make up between 9-10% of listings
in Calgary and Edmonton. In Calgary, shift listings appear to come on and off the market more frequently
than any other type of listing. On average, they experience 7 spells of an average duration of 5 months
and are booked or available to be booked an average of 18 days per month.
Finally, permanent listings make up the smallest proportion of listings in both Calgary and Edmonton—
between 10% and 11% of all listings ever created from August 2015 to July 2022. Permanent listings in
Calgary experience on average 1.4 spells of an average duration of 24 months. During that time, they are
booked or available to be booked an average of 26 days per month. These listings can be thought of as
full-time listings: these are listings that are always listed on the STR market, are the least likely to be used
as a permanent residence by the host/property owner and are the most likely to be returned to the
housing market (as a long-term rental or owner-occupied) if STRs were banned.
Using the cluster type identified above, Figure 22 plots the number of active listings by cluster type (left
panel) and the percent of active listings by cluster type (right panel) for Calgary and Edmonton. These
figures run from January 2017 to July 2022. Only Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that were created
on or before July 2022 were included in the analysis. Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings created after
July 2022 were removed. This removal skews the visualization and may lead to incorrect conclusions.
27
Note that we re-ran this without listings that were only VRBO’s (with no “created date” information available). The percentage
across types was very similar. In particular for Calgary, 27% were temporary, 49% were term, 14% were shift, and 10% were
permanent. Likewise, number of spells, spell duration, and total duration were all similar.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
48
Figure 22 shows that in Calgary, term listings are the most frequent type of listing; however, they declined
(in percent) from January 2017 to early 2022 and were particularly hard hit during the COVID-19
pandemic. As COVID-19 restrictions lifted, term listings increased in number and percent. Temporary and
shift listings move in a similar pattern over time, increasing in number and percent from January 2017
until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, temporary listings declined significantly
while shift listings also declined but not by as much. This may be due to the continued requirement that
travel for shift work more-or-less continue whereas travel for tourism-related purposes was more severely
curtailed (decreasing temporary listings). As pandemic restrictions have lifted temporary listings have
again increased (in number and percent) whereas shift listings have stagnated (in number) and declined
(in percent) as workplaces adjust to post-COVID work (e.g., increased work from home, etc.). With respect
to seasonal trends, temporary, shift, and term listings show strong seasonal patterns, with spikes in
Stampede months (July) and smaller spikes in December.
In Calgary, permanent listings grew over 2017 to 2019 and, despite a decline during the COVID-19
pandemic, are once again increasing. From about May 2020 to April 2022, there were more permanent
listings than temporary listings or term listings. This pattern changed in early 2022, when term listings
became more numerous than permanent listings again. As of July 2022, there were 867 permanent
listings—21% of all active listings in that month. Permanent listings show weak seasonal trends, with no
spikes in Stampede months.
Overall, these results suggest that although permanent listings in Calgary are far fewer than non-
permanent listings, they are increasing. We hypothesize that, if left unchecked, they will continue to
increase. These listings are the most likely to be removing housing from the housing market. On the other
hand, temporary, term, and shift listings are far greater in number and percent (79% in July 2022),
suggesting that, currently, the majority of STR listings are not removing housing from the housing market.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
49
Full-Time Listings – A New Approach: Summary
• The majority of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary are term listings (48%),
experiencing few spells (2) of short duration (5 months) on the STR market. Temporary and shift
listings also make up a large amount of listings (31% and 10%, respectively).
• Term listings, temporary listings, and shift listings show strong seasonal patterns. Term
listings and temporary listings were very negatively impacted during COVID, but have been
recovering since.
• Term listings, temporary listings, and shift listings are the least likely to be removing housing
from the housing market: they are the most likely to be permanent residences or used for
other, non-STR purposes.
• A much smaller percent of Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in Calgary are permanent
listings (10%) experiencing few spells (1.6) of very long duration (24 months) on the STR market.
• Permanent listings show weak seasonal variation, were not as negatively impacted by the
COVID-19 pandemic, and have been increasing since, reaching 867 (21%) active listings in July
2022.
• Permanent listings are the most likely to be removing housing from the housing market:
they are the least likely to be permanent residences or used for other, non-STR purposes.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
50
Figure 22: Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway Acve Lisngs by Cluster Type, Calgary and Edmonton, Jan. 2017 – July 2022
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
51
7. Impact on the Housing Market
Given what we have seen with multi-listing hosts and permanent listings, the next (and final) step of our
commercialization analysis is to consider the impact of STRs on the housing market in Calgary. In
particular, we estimate how many STRs are potentially displacing potential permanent residents. To do
this, we estimate the number of current Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that, if they were not used
as an STR listing, they would be used as a long-term rental (LTR) or returned to housing market (e.g., sold
to another, owner-occupied, etc.). That is, we estimate how many Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings
are dedicated STRs.
28
Our estimate is conservative: we take Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings that are either permanent (as
discussed in the previous section) and/or listed by a multi-listing host (as discussed in a previous section).
For reasons already argued, these units are the most likely to be dedicated STRs for which property was
bought with the sole intention of using it as an STR and/or is consistently listed on an STR platform. This
estimate is conservative because we examine only the month of July 2023. In July 2023, we are unable to
classify all listings as permanent, temporary, term, or shift (as explained in the previous section). However,
we can classify 2,810 of them (out of 5,698, about 49%). For those we cannot classify, because they have
not been on the market long enough, they are more likely to be non-permanent listings than permanent
listings. Furthermore, we can only classify hosts as multi-listing hosts if they are an Airbnb host and their
host profile was accessible (4,975 out of 5,698, 87%).
Despite these classification issues, we find that 1,580 listings are permanent listings and/or are listed by
a multi-listing host. That is, at least 28% of active Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway listings in July 2023 in
Calgary are listings that could potentially be returned to the housing market if STRs were banned. As a
percent of private dwellings, this suggests that 0.29% of all private dwellings in Calgary (as of Census 2021)
are dedicated STRs. Further, of these, 1,204 were entire units (entire apartments, entire single detached
homes, entire multi-family units, or entire suites).
Using a different method, Combs, Kerrigan, and Wachsmuth (2020) estimate that, in Toronto in 2018,
7,000 listings (0.3% of private dwellings) are frequently rented entire home listings (FREH) and 2,900
listings (0.1% of private dwellings) are very frequently rented entire home listings (VFREH) and that these
are removing housing that would otherwise be on the long-term rental market.
29
This suggests that while
Toronto had more FREH listings, as a percent of private dwelling, Calgary and Toronto have the same
percentage of FREH’s/commercialized listings (although note the methods used are different).
28
This is only one channel of impact on the LTR rental: looking at how many STRs may be converted to LTRs, and
is amenable to estimation through the methods described. The other channel of impact on the LTR rental is how STRs
affect the value of the housing stock. This requires econometric modelling which is outside the scope of this report,
and which, as far as we are aware, has not been done in Canada (although it has been done in the US).
29
They also estimated there were 1,000 FREH listings and 400 VFREH listings in Calgary in 2018.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
52
7.1 Spatial Distribution
Despite there being a sizable number of listings that are permanent listings and/or are listed by a multi-
listing host (i.e., dedicated STR) in Calgary, they are geographically concentrated. Figure 23 shows the
number of dedicated STRs by community and Table 8 shows the top 10 communities by number of
dedicated STRs, both for July 2023.
Figure 23: Dedicated STRs by Community, July 2023
Table 8: Top 10 Communies by Number of Dedicated STRs, July 2023
Community
Number of
Dedicated STRs
Sector
Community Status
(2021)
BELTLINE
245
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
SUNNYSIDE
37
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
DOWNTOWN
COMMERCIAL CORE
36 CENTRE ESTABLISHED
CHINATOWN
36
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
SETON
33
SOUTHEAST
DEVELOPING
CRESCENT HEIGHTS
31
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
DOWNTOWN EAST
VILLAGE
27 CENTRE ESTABLISHED
SUNALTA
26
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
BANKVIEW
25
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
BRIDGELAND/RIVERSIDE
25
CENTRE
ESTABLISHED
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
53
As before, centre communities in general have the highest number of dedicated STRs. However, the
Beltline has 208 more dedicated STRs than the second-place community, Sunnyside. Developing
communities do not have as many dedicated STRs; only Seton made the top 10 with 33 dedicated STRs.
However, the lower numbers in developing communities may be due to the shorter period of time that
these STRs have been on the market, precluding categorization as a permanent listing using the methods
discussed.
8. Conclusion
The purpose of this report was to set out a current, detailed portrait of the short-term rental market in
Calgary. Overall, the main take-aways are:
• While the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the STR market in Calgary, since late 2022 the STR
market has rebounded and is growing at pre-COVID rates.
• Some communities are more impacted by STR activity than other communities. These include
centre communities such as the Beltline, Crescent Heights, and Sunnyside, and developing
communities such as Seton, Livingston, and Cornerstone.
• Activity across communities differs. Centre communities are more likely to have entire apartment
listings and more STR-related complaints, while developing communities are more likely to have
basement suites.
• The majority of STR listings in Calgary are compliant with business license requirements—they
have a business license number and it is posted in their STR listing (70%).
• Most STR hosts in Calgary are individuals who operate fewer than two listings. A small but non-
negligible number of hosts are also property managers, operating listings for property owners.
However, there are a small number of hosts who are multi-listing hosts (who are not property
managers). They control a disproportionately large share of the Calgary STR market, and are the
most likely to be purchasing property for the sole purpose of operating it as an STR.
• Most STR listings in Calgary are non-permanent listings (~90%). A small number of listings are
permanent listings and are the least likely to be used as a permanent residence, removing housing
from the housing market.
• Overall, around 1,580 or 28% of all STR listings in Calgary in July 2023 were listed by a multi-listing
host and/or were a permanent listing. These are the units most likely to be returned to the
housing market if STRs were banned in Calgary. This indicates that the majority of STR listings are
non-permanent listings or listed by hosts with fewer than three listings.
Overall, the Calgary STR market is vibrant and growing. In general, we see compliance with regulations
and consistent, but not exponential, growth. While Calgary appears to have done an admirable job of
keeping the STR market under control, now is a good time to review regulations to ensure that it stays
this way, particularly as Calgary grapples with related policy issues such as affordable housing.
Short-Term Rentals in Calgary | UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
54
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