There are some 1,800 apartments in the capital rented through Airbnb, and vacancies are often hard to come by.
Kjarninn reports that the accommodations on offer can vary widely: from a mattress in an attic for 4,000 ISK a night, to a loft apartment in one of Reykjavík’s best neighbourhoods for 130,000 ISK per night. However, on average a downtown apartment goes for about 20,000 to 23,000 ISK per night. Monthly, this would come out to about 600,000 to 690,000 ISK – several times greater than what an Icelander would pay to rent an apartment downtown.
The demand is reportedly great as well. In any given six-week period, less than 20% of the Reykjavík listings in Airbnb are actually vacant, with the majority of them rented up by tourists.
Further, Airbnb rentals in Reykjavík have been on the rise. From January 2014 to January 2015, the number of Reykjavík listings have increased by 137%.
Not that these rentals are not without their problems. Apart from being cited as influencing rising rent prices in the capital, many of these accommodations are also illegal, and are at times raided by the police.
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