Under Portland law, Airbnb hosts can only list rentals on property where they live at least nine months of the year.
But Airbnb public policy director Laura Spanjian said that law hasn’t prevented individual users from listing numerous rentals.
“There definitely are still bad actors out there who aren’t following the law," she said.
The company has announced a new policy attempting to limit the number of users renting multiple units in Portland. Under the guidelines, hosts will be limited to posting just one rental at a time.
Critics of the short-term rental company say people who abuse the system put a crunch on the housing supply by making less units available to Portlanders who are seeking long-term housing.
Airbnb rolled out similar policies in San Francisco and New York last year.
Aaron Peskin, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors, said it’s unclear how aggressively the company is enforcing the policy.
“We have no way of verifying that," Peskin said. "And as a matter of fact, Airbnb won’t share their information with the city and county of San Francisco.”
The new Airbnb policy takes effect Jan. 30.
