Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.08.2017, Qupperneq 18

An Airbnb Owner
Speaks Out
On paperwork and predatory property owners
Words: Paul Fontaine Photo: Magnús Þór Einarsson

Unnur María Máney Bergsvein-
sdóttir, like a lot of Icelanders,
rents out her downtown apart-
ment on Airbnb. She travels a lot,
especially in the summer, because
of her work as a circus performer.
She doesn't rent on the local mar-
ket because it's her home, and she
infrequently returns, even during
the summer.
There’s been a lot of talk about
how Airbnb has affected the local
rental market in Iceland, but very
little has been said about what the
Airbnb experience is like for those
renting out all or part of their
homes. Unnur feels that while
the process is much simpler now,
there is still room for improve-
ment, and the real problem lies
not with ordinary Icelanders, but
in larger real estate companies.
Off to a rough start
"When I got my permit, they were
in the process of making new ar-
rangements,” Unnur tells us. “I
was trying to get information
on how things are supposed to
work—I am a ridiculously law-
abiding person—and was always
told, 'Well, we're still trying to
figure out how it will work,' and
so on. It was weird though, be-
cause they changed the law in
the middle of summer, and it was
even stranger that in December
they still couldn't give us any in-
formation about how things had
changed."
Unnur was finally able to apply
in January, with the plan to start
renting her place out in March.
Come March, she still hadn't
heard anything from management
at Airbnb. This wasn't due to laws
required by the city, but the neces-
sity of having a health inspector’s
approval, which as of May is no
longer a requirement.
"Personally, I felt that paying
about 70,000 ISK in all for the
inspection and a stamped paper
saying that my house was OK was
kind of stupid,” says Unnur. “The
inspector came in, we had a cof-
fee and a nice chit-chat, but he
didn't even check if I had a work-
ing battery in my fire alarm. They
changed the law two days after I
paid it, and up until that point I
still couldn't rent out my apart-
ment."
Unnur speculates
that this part of the
law was probably
c h a n g e d b e c a u s e
so few people were
applying for it any-
way. The permit is
now only 8,000 ISK,
paid to the city, and
things have been go-
ing pretty smoothly
since the initial hic-
cups.
"Now I can understand why
people are doing Airbnb illegally.
It's been a complicated and tedi-
ous process. I'm a goody-goody
when it comes to rules, but I can
understand why some people
might have just said 'Fuck it' and
started renting out rooms without
booking a health inspection. The
way they set up the system sure
didn't do me any favours."
The market crunch
"A lot of the Airbnb places I see
now are professional Airbnb
flats,” Unnur continues. “I also see
it a lot when I travel, because I use
it myself. These are places that are
not homes, and no one ever lives
there, like a hotel, basically. The
way I see it, that's what's making
the rent situation in Iceland horri-
ble. It's totally normal that people
like me can gain a little from rent-
ing our homes while we're not us-
ing them. But as soon as you start
having people investing, buying
apartments—places where no
one ever permanently lives—then
those places of course go com-
pletely out of the rental market."
Unnur mentions that when you
compare the number of Airbnb
listings to the number of permits
actually issued by the County Seat,
there is a significant discrepancy.
While things are going well for
her, there are still changes she
would like to see made, for every-
one’s sake.
"What I would
like is for the
city to make an
agreement with
Airbnb to get in-
formation from
them,” she says.
“I think if some-
one wants to buy
up apartments
and rent them
out, then those
places should be
taxed as businesses. Then they'd
have to choose between either
paying high taxes, or putting
those homes back on the market.
But that's not happening right
now."
18 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2017
“Now I can
understand
why people
are doing
Airbnb
illegally”
Long story short: she had to jump through a lot of hoopsNEW
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