Europe’s housing crisis into a get-rich scheme by Sabine Fischer

Once upon a time, you went to Paris, Lisbon, or Athens and booked a hotel. A real one, with a reception, breakfast buffet, creaky elevator, and that grumpy concierge who became oddly endearing by day three. Today, you scroll through dozens of "quaint flats" on Airbnb, all owned by someone who calls themselves “global entrepreneur” but looks suspiciously like a landlord with 25 properties and a suspiciously blurry profile photo.

The gig economy was once dressed up as liberation. Power to the people, we were told. The freedom to travel like a local, live like a native, and experience cities not as tourists but as citizens, except that very promise now rings painfully ironic, because the real locals are being priced out of their own neighborhoods to make room for your next weekend getaway.

Let’s drop the polite diplomacy and call it for what it is: Airbnb has become a housing parasite, and Europe is its latest host. Behind the cheerful photos of fluffy towels and cappuccino-ready kitchenettes hides a Frankenstein’s monster of deregulation, speculation, and yes, plenty of shady cash.

Airbnb began with a story so innocent it could tuck itself into bed: two guys renting out an air mattress during a design conference. That was the myth. But the moment venture capital sniffed profit, that sweet tale turned into a cynical empire of pseudo-hotels masquerading as homes.

Fast forward to 2025: entire buildings in Prague are now Airbnb-only. Locals in Barcelona and Amsterdam are being pushed further out of the cities they helped build. And Athens is rapidly becoming a theme park for digital nomads and bachelorette parties, while pensioners are evicted for being too unprofitable.

We are no longer in the realm of someone renting out their spare bedroom to make ends meet. That narrative died somewhere between IPO filings and property tycoons in Mykonos listing ten seaside villas as “private homes.” This is industrial-scale real estate laundering wrapped in the Instagram aesthetic of artisanal soap and rooftop views.

Here’s the untold truth that’s slowly clawing its way out from behind the pastel filters: Airbnb isn’t just wrecking housing affordability, it’s become a thriving vessel for black-market economies. Unregulated cash transactions, tax evasion, and even money laundering are not fringe abuses anymore; they are structural features.

In countries like Italy, Greece, and Portugal, where oversight is already struggling, Airbnb is now a preferred playground for undeclared income. You can almost hear the accountants sighing in resignation: “Another undeclared flat in Lisbon with €300-a-night bookings, paid in cash? Add it to the pile.”

Try reporting it. Try taxing it. Good luck. Most listings aren’t even under the host’s real name. Many properties are funneled through layers of shell companies or “friends of cousins” who don’t officially exist. It's a digital wild west, only the bandits wear designer shoes and speak with angel investor accents.

Meanwhile, honest renters and first-time buyers can’t compete. A young couple in Lyon looking to rent a one-bedroom finds themselves outbid by a Swiss investor who’s converting the space into his seventh short-term listing. And the local council? Drenched in bureaucracy and political fear, with half the city council already hosting on Airbnb themselves.

To be fair, some cities are trying to fight back. Berlin capped Airbnb rentals. Amsterdam limited nights. Barcelona went full Hercules and banned short-term tourist rentals altogether. But like Hercules, they forgot that when you cut off one Hydra head, two more pop up, on Booking.com and Vrbo.

In many European cities, enforcement is a joke. Even with new rules, the listings stay up. Fines are barely enforced. Hosts laugh at loopholes while city housing departments scramble to find outdated contact numbers. This isn’t regulation. It’s performance art. And it’s not working.

Let’s not kid ourselves, someone’s getting rich. Airbnb, obviously, but also a growing class of property speculators who saw the platform as a way to game capitalism on turbo mode. These aren’t mom-and-pop hosts, they’re spreadsheet landlords with lawyers and market forecasts.

And let’s be honest: we, the users, are complicit. We wanted cheap, cozy, “authentic” apartments. We got them. But what we also got was the erosion of community, skyrocketing rents, and cities that feel more like Instagram sets than places to live.

Tourism has always been a double-edged sword. But this isn’t tourism anymore. It’s colonization by calendar app.

If you’ve ever wondered why your friend in Milan can’t afford to live near his office anymore, or why that bakery you loved in Porto suddenly became a co-working space with acai bowls, it’s not because of natural market forces.

It’s because platforms like Airbnb helped turn homes into commodities. And when homes are commodities, people become collateral damage.

So next time you click “Book Now” on that charming flat in Krakow, ask yourself: who lived there before it became a rental? Who’s profiting off it now? And what price is the city paying for your weekend escape?

Because while you sip wine on that balcony with “panoramic views,” someone’s grandmother is packing boxes in the apartment next door, evicted to make room for the next check-in.