The prevalence of homeowners using AirBnb across Dublin to rent out their properties is very much in the spotlight amid the current housing crisis.
A web app, Wherebnb.io, has been produced by four Irish software developers and it aims to track the usage of Airbnb in the capital help users make the most of their short-term letting opportunities.
Its developers say it could even contribute to a small extent in alleviating the lack of available rental properties in Dublin.
The app generates a map through a web portal and from there draws on all of the locations of current Airbnb properties in Dublin.
One of the developers, Sam Heavey, says you can find out things like the "relationship between Airbnbs, the minimum nights you can book for, the price per night".
Mr Heavey believes the app has the potential to address people's habits with regard to how they use Airbnb.
"It's simply the raw data visualised in which case you can either, as a user find somewhere appropriate for you, or as someone who's trying to let an Airbnb, maybe potentially see the competition in the area," he said.
He said the app can also discern for people looking to rent out their property whether their area is high or low density and what the value of their area is.
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With regard to helping to free up accommodation through the app's usage, Mr Heavey said on the website "you can filter by various parameters, one of which is the minimum number of nights ... so if you maximise or minimise some of the filters you can see certain properties have minimum nights of 30 days, 365 days, 450 days in some cases".
The app currently has around 16,000 unique users and Mr Heavey says there has already been strong feedback from the small community of users.
"It allows people to get their own information easily," he added.
For now the app only shows Airbnb data but the developers are hoping to expand on that.
Mr Heavey said "it already includes some basic census information, population per square km, but we might include things like socioeconomic conditions and then for example we might include properties for sale, properties to rent, that kind of thing".
The developer says with all of that data, the app could be useful for identifying things such as property price or socioeconomic trends.
Mr Heavey said the app current works best in the Google Chrome browser but the developers are looking at creating a mobile version of the app.
