Low income residential housing in the outskirts of Mexico City, Mexico, on Sunday, April 25, 2021. (Photo: Luis Antonio Rojas/Bloomberg) The city’s legislators voted for a reform that will ban landlords from renting out their properties using such apps for more than 50% of the days in a year.
The reform is intended to reduce unfair competition with hotels, the city’s congress said in a press release.
Limiting the supply of tourist accommodation will promote market balance, support the hotel industry and avoid changing the character of neighbourhoods saturated by housing destined exclusively for tourists, said Cesar Guijosa of the Morena party, which controls the city as well as the national government.
The mass arrival of digital nomads, mainly from the US, has led to increasing complaints from locals. Many choose to work out of Mexico City because it’s relatively cheap compared to US cities.
Those reforms also prohibit government-built social housing from being rented to tourists on digital platforms.
Opposing legislators rejected the reforms, arguing that they violate the individual freedom and the rights of property owners.