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Work-from-home has become work-from-anywhere. Short-term rental sites report an uptick in the number of remote and hybrid workers—who are no longer tethered to their workplace—and who are booking homes to stay in while they work from afar.
Nearly half of the nights booked in the third quarter on Airbnb’s short-term house rental platform were for stays of at least seven days, up from 44% in 2019. One out of every five gross nights booked in the third quarter were for stays that stretched even more—28 days or longer.
“As the world undergoes a revolution in how we live and work, more people are blending life with travel,” Airbnb notes in a recent release. Airbnb launched a new campaign, “Live Anywhere on Airbnb,” as it scoured the country for 12 individuals who are interested in living in Airbnb listings for a year and documenting their experiences. The campaign aims to inform Airbnb's marketing and guide the company’s foray into serving this clientele in the future.
Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky recently announced that he would take that challenge too and live in Airbnb’s across the country, switching to new homes and cities every few weeks.
Airbnb predicts that people will continue to use short-term rentals to spread out to more towns and cities and have longer stays—staying for weeks, months, or even longer. They also predict that more people will eventually want to start living abroad, possibly even traveling for the entire summer to stay in short-term rentals, and some may even be tempted to give up their leases and become digital nomads. Some remote workers may even use short-term rentals to “try out” a place before they decide to buy a home there, they note in their predictions.