VANCOUVER—The city says its new regulations for short-term rental listings have resulted in more than 2,400 Airbnb listings being deactivated and 660 more being removed voluntarily or switched to long-term rentals.

But officials still have a lot of work ahead of them when it comes to cracking down on people who intentionally misuse their short-term rental license or continue to list without a licence. Social-media users continue to identify multiple listings that use the same business licence number, and one data analyst says he’s found users listing their properties under the wrong city in order to skirt the rules.

“In the two business days since the Aug. 31 deadline, we’ve identified 294 new listings where we have started enforcement, investigation and action,” Kathryn Holm, chief licence inspector, told media at a Wednesday press conference.

“We’re focusing our enforcement on operators who are unlicensed or who are misusing their license, but it will take time to identify and enforce all of those who are operating outside of our regulations.”

The new rules adopted by the city this spring require people who post properties for less than 30 days on Airbnb or other sites to have a city business licence. Because the goal of the new rules is to encourage long-term rentals, property owners who rent their space for more than 30 days don’t need a licence.

The property must also be the primary residence of the person posting it. Renters are supposed to have permission from the property owner, and condo owners need to make sure short-term rentals are allowed.

Airbnb users who violate the city’s bylaw could face a $1,000 fine. Depending on the severity of the offence, that fine could be levied per offence, per day or both, Holm said.

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Jens von Bergmann, a data analyst who has been tracking scraped Airbnb data against the city’s business licence data, said he saw a roughly 20 per cent drop in listings between Aug. 31 and today, while many of the listings switched to over 30 days “overnight.”

He said he also found a few users listing their location as Burnaby — which does not have the same regulations — when the property is clearly in Vancouver, while others are entering Chinese characters that fly under the radar of Airbnb and the city.

Holm said she would ask Airbnb about the city name field. She said the city is fairly confident that people who switch to over 30-day listings are actually renting their place long-term, because Airbnb sets its calendar to a 30-day period and does not allow bookings for fewer days.

She said the city has built a sophisticated data analytics tool that brings together data Airbnb is giving the city, complaints from the public and other data like information “scraped” from listings.

Airbnb was the first short-term rental platform to sign a memorandum of understanding with the city, but Vancouver is also in talks with Expedia, the company that owns another popular site called HomeAway, Holm said.

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There are also several non-English-language sites operating in Vancouver. But Holm said the city doesn’t know exactly how many of those platforms there are.

“The non-English STR websites are an area where we’re continuing to evolve our strategy on how best to monitor and enforce,” she said.

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