Neighbourly North, a rental management company for short-term rental accommodations that operates in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, was awarded $180,000 by the Yukon Economic Development Fund in 2023 to develop an app for their services.

Former Whitehorse City Councilor Steve Roddick speaks up about the short-term housing market in Whitehorse and Neighbourly North. Roddick levies that the unregulated short-term rental market in Whitehorse has made it lucrative for landlords and Neighbourly North, at the expense of those short-term rental units being removed from the long-term rental market. “Housing is really complicated and there are a lot of moving pieces,” Roddick says.  “But if you’re building more and letting the bottom bleed out through the short-term rentals that are unregulated you are kind of shooting yourself in the foot.”

Neighbourly North, officially launched in May of 2020 (though they did pre-exist as Two Mile Asset Management) is self-described as “Whitehorse's first short-term rental property management company.” They manage and advertise (through AirBNB and other booking platforms) short-term rental bookings on behalf of landlords, and include cleaning services of units after short-term stays. Their website shows that each unit is given a Northern textured name, like “The Narwhal,” “The Snowshoe,” “The Explorer,” “Wind River,” “The Chinook.” 

Neighbourly North claims that they manage “approximately 60 fully furnished all-inclusive and serviced dwellings,” a subset of “approximately 150 primary homes and secondary dwellings currently listed on AirBNB,” which puts them as representing approximately 40% of all short-term rentals on the most popular short-term rental platform.

Pereira says that Neighbourly North fills an important niche in the housing market. He says: “There are dozens of local organizations – we estimate more than 100 – in the private sector, non-profit ecosystem, and various levels of government who rely on the short-term housing market for access to temporary housing.”

British Columbia recently introduced the Short Term Rental Accommodations Act in December of 2023, which bans the operation of short-term rentals province-wide if they are not operated by a landlord who lives on the same property as the short-term rental unit. On this subject, the BC Government says: 

“The rise of short-term rental of entire homes is taking away much needed homes for British Columbians. Data shows that more than 16,000 entire homes are being used as short-term rentals for the majority of the year in B.C. This is making it more challenging to find affordable long-term rentals.”

There is a lack of definitive research about this subject in the Yukon, but according to the website AirDNA, around 100 more short-term rental units have appeared on Whitehorse’s AirBNB bookings from 2020 to 2023. 

Despite this measure from the Yukon’s southern neighbour, Pereira insists that “With virtual certainty, we can say that Whitehorse’s short-term housing market does not cause increased rents in the long-term housing market.” Pereira instead points to population growth as the major factor in the housing crisis, which has pushed the city beyond its housing capacities: 

Pereira instead points to population growth as the major factor in the housing crisis, which has pushed the city beyond its housing capacities: “Whitehorse is operating far above its capacity at all of its purpose-built short-term housing options, as well as hotels. The short-term housing market serves as a catch-all solution for all of these niches.”

As it stands currently, the City of Whitehorse does not have a definition or classification of what a short-term rental is, and thus the industry is completely unregulated. However, the City is currently undergoing a Zoning Bylaw rewrite, to bring the bylaw into accordance with the goals and guidelines of the Official Community Plan that was adopted in March of 2023. The city’s Housing and Land Development Advisory Committee plans to present its recommendations on the Zoning Bylaw changes sometime in early 2024. 

It’s unclear if the committee even plans on addressing short-term rentals, however. In October of 2022 Mélodie Simard. Manager, Planning and Sustainability Services, said about short-term housing: “There’s not a policy position that’s proposed in the OCP how the city would want to deal with short-term rentals. Rather the proposed OCP is calling for a fact-finding exercise to better understand the short-term rental market, to better inform city policies and bylaws.”