How Airbnb's Policies are Impacting Long Term Rents & LTR Acquisitions in Anchorage

While it's old news that Airbnb has implemented a hosting quality system for listings and removed 400,000+ from their platform since 2023, the impact in Anchorage on the broader investment market has been more recent. Since COVID, the number of Airbnbs in Anchorage expanded greatly. This had more impact on home prices than in other markets around the country, because of the limited buildable land in our area (limited housing inventory). Anchorage doesn't have a massive population, it's a pocket. With fewer homes available for first time home buyers, there were more renters. This strengthened the LTR segment of the market. 

In Anchorage, total Airbnb listings have dropped from 2,988  in 2023 to under 2,322 as of July 4, 2025. 650 housing units can have an impact on the investment market of our size in a few ways. In my conversations with property managers and colleagues, we've noticed the vast majority of those Airbnbs are converted to long term rentals. This has increased LTR inventory, which has led to (some) softening of rents and impacted vacancy for landlords who haven't noticed the shift and made pricing adjustments. The persistent high cost of housing for first-time homebuyers in our market has mitigated how much rents have softened, but the rent appreciation seems to have leveled off, particularly in the winter months. All of these dynamics have led to more multifamily listings, more price drops, and higher ADOM for those LTR Multifamily listings than we've seen in a while. 

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Whenever there is a market shift, there is an opportunity. For attentive Airbnb operators, it's a great time to be in business with less competition. Although, we'll see the extent to which we see a reduction in international tourists/visitors with some of the tariffs causing political tensions this year. For people looking up to pick up more doors or who own a bunch of LTRs, the next 12 months could be really interesting in Alaska.