Airbnb in Berlin

In 2008 the first Berlin apartment was listed on Airbnb. It is estimated that there are now around 10,000 properties in Berlin being rented out on Airbnb. You can view where and when all 10,000 properties were listed on Airbnb on a new interactive animated map.

Airbnb in Berlin is an animated map which shows the growth of the Airbnb market in Berlin from 2008 to the present day. As the animation plays you can watch as properties are added to the map by the date of their listing. Every dot on the map shows when a property was first added to Airbnb and the name of the property's owner.

Unfortunately the map doesn't include a timeline control. It would be useful to be able to adjust the date visualized on the map. For example this would be useful for exploring the effect of Berlin banning whole properties from being listed on Airbnb from May 2016. It would also be useful to view some other visualizations of the data, for example a heat map view showing where in the city the most properties are listed.


Airbnb vs Berlin is a much better data driven investigation into the popularity of Airbnb in Berlin and the possible effect it is having on affordable housing in the city.

Among the interactive maps used to illustrate this investigation is Airbnb Streets. The map highlights the streets in Berlin with more than 20 Airbnb offers and reveals that many of the properties listed on Airbnb are in popular tourist areas. In particular there is a high concentration of properties in areas that are popular with young travelers.


Another interactive map in the article visualizes the number of Airbnb listings by neighborhood. This choropleth map shows in which areas of the city more flats and rooms are offered on Airbnb. The Reuterkiez area in Neukölln is the most active neighborhood on Airbnb with 476 rooms and flats listed within only a few blocks.

A third map shows the locations of properties by the top 10 'power users' in Berlin. There is one user who lists 44 separate properties in Berlin on Airbnb. This rise in 'super users' suggests that Airbnb is being used as a business tool. It appears that more and more Airbnb listings are being rented on a commercial level by landlords exploiting the service to make higher profits from short term rentals rather than from renting out their properties to long term tenants.