Olympic Games-2024: in Paris, the hunt for illegal tourist accommodation

With 60.000 active advertisements in the French capital on the site of the Californian giant - a third more than a year ago, according to the city's Observatory of furnished tourist accommodation - and an average increase of 85% in prices in Ile-de-France, according to Airbnb, the Olympics effect is carefully scrutinized by Parisian elected officials.

According to the data analysis site AirDNA, the average price of advertisements during the Olympics amounts to 632 euros, for an average reserved price of 301 euros.

On the ground, there is little doubt about the windfall effect for owners, in a city where it is already difficult to find rental accommodation.

"We have many more reports of fraudulent sales or repossessions than usual. Some landlords even say to their tenant 'it's the Olympics, you're leaving and I'll take you back after'", assures Jean-Baptiste Eyraud , spokesperson for the DAL (Right to Housing).

“Since September, we have had 28% of notices given to tenants which are not regulatory, compared to 23% last year,” confirms Pierre-Louis Monteiro, project manager at the Departmental Housing Information Agency (Adil ) from Paris.

As the end of the winter break approaches, Paris senator Ian Brossat (PCF) called for "an Olympic truce on rental evictions", estimating that "the Olympic period can give rise to bad vocations among owners who want to make a profit.

To prevent abuses, the City opened a telephone line in mid-January (01.42.79.50.40) allowing Adil agents to provide free legal advice.

25.000 illegal ads

The City has also hired five people to strengthen the battalion of 30 agents from the Office for the Protection of Residential Premises (BPLH), who are more in the field and who can transmit cases to the courts.

They are the ones who control the legality of online advertisements by checking whether the photos correspond to apartments rented occasionally or to hotel rooms, whether they are properly registered and whether the rental companies respect the limit of 120 annual rental days for a main residence.

“We go door to door and inquire with neighbors about the presence of furnished accommodation,” Barbara Gomes, Paris councilor in charge of rental platforms (PCF), explains to AFP, recalling that the town hall “does not has nothing against legal Airbnbs.

“You're going on vacation and you want to put some money into your spinach, we have absolutely nothing against it. These are not accommodations that are going to disappear from the market, unlike furnished accommodation all year round,” she adds.

Last year, a fine of 50.000 euros with a penalty of 1.000 euros per day was imposed on two rental companies who had not requested authorization to convert their accommodation into furnished tourist accommodation, considered a commercial activity.

Elsewhere in France, the host cities of the Olympic Games display their serenity, including in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), the nerve center of the Games, whose mayor Mathieu Hanotin (PS) sees in Airbnb "a very good complementary product in due to the lack of hotel supply" and an "interesting" additional income for residents.

Lille has, however, tightened the screw again by requiring, from April 1, to compensate each square meter transformed into furnished tourist accommodation into square meter of housing.

Communities also expect a lot from a bill from deputies Annaïg Le Meur (Renaissance) and Iñaki Echaniz (PS) to regulate furnished tourist accommodation. “This transpartisan law will allow us to further sanction the estimated 25.000 illegal Airbnbs in Paris,” recognizes Jacques Baudrier, Deputy for Housing in Paris (PCF).

“A whole bunch of obstacles are going to come up. We will be able to bring many more lawsuits and win them all,” he warns, even if he recalls that in Paris, the main problem remains the “270.000 vacant homes and second homes” .

“There are 8.000 primary residences which become second homes or vacant accommodation every year, and this has nothing to do with the Olympics or Airbnb,” he summarizes.