POSTMODERN NANNYSTATISM: The City of Austin imposes a 10pm bedtime on homesharing guests.

Home-sharing—renting a room or an entire home from a homeowner, often through an online platform like Airbnb and HomeAway—offers travelers a cost-effective and customizable alternative to traditional hotels. It helps homeowners pay their mortgages and other bills. And it gives entrepreneurs an incentive to buy dilapidated houses and restore them. But most importantly, home-sharing is an important way for property owners to exercise their basic right to choose whether to let someone stay in their home—a right the United States Supreme Court has called “one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property.” That’s why protecting responsible homeowners’ right to rent their homes is one of the Goldwater Institute’s top national property rights priorities.

Unfortunately, the city of Austin has not welcomed this economic opportunity or respected the rights of property owners, but rather joined a growing number of cities that have imposed draconian rules that deprive homeowners of some of their most basic constitutional rights.

Austin’s regulations restrict the number and activity of guests of short-term (but not long-term) rentals, subject home-sharers to warrantless searches, and completely ban homeowners from offering their home as a short-term rental if the home isn’t their primary residence.

Let’s call this what it is: Punitive rent-seeking by the hotel industry.