  As affordability pressures and tight rental markets in global cities mount,
online shared accommodation sites proliferate. Home sharing arrangements
present dilemmas for planning that aims to improve health and safety standards,
while supporting positives such as the usage of dormant stock and the relieving
of rental pressures on middle/lower income earners. Currently, no formal data
exists on this internationally growing trend. Here, we present a first
quantitative glance on shared accommodation practices across all major urban
centers of Australia enabled via collection and analysis of thousands of online
listings. We examine, countrywide, the spatial and short time scale temporal
characteristics of this market, along with preliminary analysis on rents,
dwelling types and other characteristics. Findings have implications for
housing policy makers and planning practitioners seeking to monitor and respond
to housing policy and affordability pressures in formal and informal housing
markets.
