direction star died. now on bbc news, talking business. hello and welcome to talking business. let's have a look at what's on the show. struggling to find an affordable place to live? well, you're not alone. in a place like new york, home ownership is out of reach for a lot of people. and the problem is getting worse. i'll be speaking with the leading oecd economist willem adema, whose data proves it. then we'll head to pittsburgh and hear from the woman leading its urban redevelopment association to find out how pittsburghers are bucking the trend with affordable accommodation. and your home away from home. airbnb is one of the internet�*s

original disruptors, but is it a victim of its own success? i'll be speaking to its founder and chief executive, brian chesky. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. a safe place to live is a basic human necessity. it's as essential as food and water, but it's becoming harder and harderfor people to find affordable homes. as populations rise, especially in cities, there's more demand, and that's causing prices to increase. looking at the real house prices of the 37 most developed nations, you can see the line keeps going up. it dips after the 2008 crash and again after covid, but each time prices recover. just looking in the last ten years, there's been a 40% increase. wages certainly have not increased at the same pace.

it is becoming more difficult to get on the property ladder, especially in some of the world's most expensive cities. the cost of living and the, like, average wages and cost of education and things like that are way different now than they were before, so especially in a place like new york, home ownership is out of reach for a lot of people. it is definitely a goal. um, i don't know how attainable it is, is the only thing. it's massively overpriced. if i get my own place by the time i'm 30, that's great. that's incredible. it feels so distant and something that, you know, maybe just won't happen. a recent survey in the uk found thatjust over half of people who'd like to buy property don't think they ever will. and this situation has knock—on effects, with implications for poverty levels, social mobility and life satisfaction, and my first guest,

willem adema, a senior economist for the organisation for economic co—operation and development, thinks it's getting worse. thank you for talking business with us today. the words housing crisis get thrown around a lot these days, but looking at your own data, that 40% increase across those 37 countries over the last decade, is this a crisis, and how big do you think it is? i think crisis is an often overused word, but i think the situation is such that governments and societies would do well to pay more attention to housing issues. if you don't have a home to go to, that's what you call a crisis, and there are, these days two million homeless people in the oecd, on average. so i would say that the word crisis can be used in this particular case.

i mean, you touch on an interesting issue there about actual homelessness, but let's zone in, first of all, on those many aspiring homeowners who are increasingly in despair. they're not homeless, but they feel like they'll never be able to afford their own home, and looking at the numbers, it seems like their opportunities are worse than a decade or two ago. would you agree? yeah, definitely. real prices have gone up, real house prices have gone up over the last decade, and young people and other low—income groups are bearing the brunt, and what you see in those cases is that young people either spend more on rent in the private rental sector, which limits their opportunity to save, to buy, and because they have to spend more time in rentals,

it takes much longer to save for a deposit. or if they don't go and live in private rental sector, they stay at home, and in the oecd, on average, about 50% of those aged 20 to 29 live with their parents. now, this is 80% or more in korea, in italy and in spain. it's about 45% in the uk. where do you see this problem at its worst? the affordability issues are biggest in cities, because they are more expensive to live in. and what is the cause? first of all, the affordability crisis is not something

whichjust emerged. it has been building up, and in oecd countries since 2005 till 2015, '16, �*i7, there's been a sort of decline in public investment in housing. we simply haven't built enough, and you have to keep in mind that demand is changing. you used to have families... largerfamilies. these days, a lot of households are small—sized. single person, two—person households, they're looking for apartments in cities, and the market can't respond quickly enough to the change in demand. and the worst consequence of this has to be homelessness. what proportion...or how much is it fuelling homelessness? across the oecd, there's two million homeless people who are either living on the street or are in emergency accommodation.

over the past decade, what you see is a change in the clientele, so to speak. so the traditional type of a single middle—aged man who is homeless has changed. there are more families with children who are homeless. and are there broader economic impacts as well, notwithstanding the homelessness issue, or people who are simply uncomfortably still living with their parents? is it harming the economy? it is quite clear that an increase in housing costs has a negative effect on these fertility trends. either young people delay partnering and have no children or they have fewer children than they would otherwise... ..might have had in the past. that changes the face of society. societies in europe are ageing. the share of children in the population is limited, and that also has implications for the growth of societies in terms of working—age

population, because 20 years down the line, the low fertility rates have an implication for labour supply, so that also has a dampening effect on economic growth. and what are your preferred or recommended solutions to this crisis?

it is important is that this goes to the young people who otherwise have very limited resources. ratherthan otherwise have very limited resources. rather than just money to support and demand side. and what are your preferred or recommended solutions to this crisis? there is not one single solution. you have to make sure that you use different measures. building, constructing social housing and affordable housing is an important part of the solution, but it's also important for housing markets to become more efficient, for planning regulations to become swifter and less bureaucratic and time—consuming. so there is a whole range of measures that need to be taken to make it also more

attractive for private agents to invest in housing. willem adema, senior economist with the 0ecd, thank you for talking business with me today. excellent. 0ne city that's consistently topped the forbes most affordable list, as well as the demographia international ranking, is pittsburgh in pennsylvania. with a metro population of around 1.7 million, it boasts comparatively low house prices and mortgage rates, but scores highly on liveability. so what is pittsburgh doing right? well, my next guest is susheela nemani—stanger, the executive director of the urban redevelopment authority for the city of pittsburgh. susheela, thank you forjoining us on talking business. skyrocketing housing costs are a huge issue in big cities around the world. what was it that motivated pittsburgh to take action to keep housing affordable? it's important to note that housing affordability

in pittsburgh can be a relative term, depending on who you ask. but as you know, the cost of living is reasonable. but across the nation, salaries and wages have not always kept pace with the price of housing. we have been very intentional about the challenges of affordable housing in pittsburgh, and because we are now a tech town, we started with data collection because we needed to understand how many affordable units we were deficient. i know you had a task force that you set up back in 2015. are those the things that it set about doing? in the field of economic development, knowing is half the battle, and so it's important to solicit studies, whether it's an economic impact study or some other level of data collection, to understand what we're solving for, because there could be a perception that something is a problem that we need to solve.

but if we have the data, then we can have data—driven solutions that actually solve the problem. i wonder, did you face any obstacles, though? looking assistance for homelessness the way up to aiding income. individuals who have employment such as teachers and police officers. we looked at the entire range of the need for affordable housing. and we also looked at the entire range of how we

could... because as you know it's a lot about supply and demand. . as the economic development agency were also focused on the other path to affordable homeownership which is the creation of quality and stable jobs. i wonder, did you face any obstacles, though? perhaps pushback from existing property owners who didn't want to see their, you know, property values depressed or any other vested interests? but, you know, we've had a lot of different events that have occurred in pittsburgh that have forced us to reflect on ourselves and allowed us opportunities to rebuild, so an important turning point for pittsburgh was when

the steel industry left and we lost over half of our population in the 1970s and �*80s. the population decline posed a challenge, but it also provided us with a unique advantage to grow slowly and steadily. and so our post—steel rebirth has shown that with a collective intelligence around our needs, then we had the ability to adapt, be nimble, and reallyjust chart our own course, to redefine our identity. and we took action. susheela, ivisited pittsburgh once, and i took the train there from new york city, known as one of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live. have you any advice there for your neighbours in new york as to how they can keep those costs under control? new york has a lot of housing financial tools to help provide affordable housing, and i would just recommend staying the course and also creating tools that can help with office—to—residential conversions downtown. that's a real opportunity here in pittsburgh,

and we're doing that. so where you have vacancy in office buildings, it's truly an opportunity to unlock quality and affordable housing opportunities for residents. of course, every city has its own unique set of circumstances. but you pittsburghers, what lessons do you think other cities can learn from you to keep housing affordable? we've learned many important lessons from rebuilding after the steel industry left, and i think the most important thing is that we took action right away. we had plans and those plans did not sit on shelves. we took action because people believe in action, not plans. susheela nemani—stanger, from the great city of pittsburgh, thank you forjoining us today. thank you. coming up after the break — are too many bad reviews airbnb is one of the first tech companies to completely

transform the way we travel. it upended the hotel market and in some places, the housing rental market too. but the company has come a long way from its roots of renting out a spare room for a bit of extra cash. subpar host properties have caused some guests to look elsewhere, while some cities are cracking down on airbnbs altogether. i discussed this and more with the company's chief executive. brian chesky, thank you so much for talking business with me today. you guys, you and your team, you've achieved that magical thing of becoming a verb — "to airbnb". so i wonder, at this stage, you know, 17 years after you launched, is there anything left for airbnb to disrupt in your space? oh, yeah. i mean, that is the question. um...it�*s a noun and a verb. "i'm going to airbnb my place." "i'm going to get an airbnb." and it's one of the only brands in the world, and the amazing thing is, it's very difficult to become a noun and a verb, but it's even more difficult to now take a brand that's associated

with mainly one thing and now take that idea and extend it. but i think that airbnb means something much more than getting a short—term rental place to stay. now we're launching the co—host network. this is probably the biggest change to our model to list a home on airbnb since we started the company. so what difference will users notice with this new co—host network? if you want to put your home on airbnb, either you have to do the hosting, so you have to list the home, you have to photograph it, you've got to manage the bookings, you've got to greet the guest. then you've got to be responsive to them, and then you got to clean the place after and get ready for the next guest. it's an undertaking. i said, well, what if we brought some of the best hosts in airbnb and made them available on the network? so if you come to airbnb and you want to list your home, we will immediately present you a co—host network of host, and based on 80 different variables, mostly...the most important is location, where are you located,

but there's other factors as well. we're going to match you to the very best co—host for you. so is this another step in the professionalisation of your host network, turning them from people who earn extra income on airbnb as a sideline to maybe making it their main source of income? this is maybe counterintuitive, but in some ways this is about moving away from professionalisation. now, i give you an example. right now, there's a lot of ordinary people, they want to make some extra money. and we have a huge number of people on airbnb that put their homes up to be able to help pay their rent or mortgage. that income's important to them. so these will not be dedicated rentals. these are not going to be giant property management companies. these are typically people that are managing four, five, six other homes for mostly everyday people. now, i know you started airbnb in your own apartments. i understand you're still a host. is that right? i'm still a host. i think it's really,

really important to continue to use your product, and honestly, if i wasn't the founder, maybe i'd still... i'd still probably host, because ijust really enjoy sharing my world with other people. but i know that also, recently, you removed around 200,000 are the expectations of guests changing? i are the expectations of guests chan . in: ? ~ �* , are the expectations of guests chanauin? ~' �*, ., changing? i think there's a coule changing? i think there's a couple things _ changing? i think there's a couple things happening. i changing? i think there's a - couple things happening. when airbnb started it was... i was 206i'm now 43... i think people in their 20s have low expectations of hospitality. millennial is where the earliest adopters and they have aged up. we now have moved a little bit upmarket as our bodies have grown with us. and as you spend more money you

have higher expectations. but i know that also, recently, you removed around 200,000 listings because they weren't meeting guests' expectations. so does that suggest that perhaps your quality control wasn't as good before you made that move? absolutely. i mean, let'sjust be straight up about it. when airbnb started, like, 16 years ago, it was what i might call an open marketplace. it wasn't that tightly managed. anyone could list almost anything, and the basic theory was, well, we don't need to vet the quality, because there's a review system, and if something isn't high quality, the guests will leave a bad review and then future guests, subsequent guests will not stay there. and while that system, i think, is a good system, it was necessary, but not sufficient. in other words, over the last decade and a half, we realised we need to get much further. and so we started doing proactive trust and safety checks, doing verification of users, having a 24/7 support line, adding aircover, and more recently, over the last couple of years, we've been very hands—on with quality, and we've removed

hundreds of thousands of properties on airbnb, elevating the standards, and we're going to continue to elevate the standards of what it means to be on airbnb. what do you make of that professionalisation of airbnb, the small number of other companies that are out there using it as their full—time occupation? i'm supportive of a property manager that provides great hospitality in airbnb, that complies with local laws and is in a community where housing is, you know, not taken off the market. and we're in 100,000 cities, so i don't want to paint a broad brushstroke, and i think in those circumstances, it's really, really great. now, again, there's a couple of things it's important to acknowledge. number one, the average property management rating is lower on airbnb historically from these third—party companies than individual hosts in airbnb. so customer satisfaction on individuals and co—hosts — to be clear, co—hosts are the same, they're also very, very high — are higher.

now, it doesn't mean that this group isn't good, but it does mean they need some improvement. there are lots of cities, though, and they're usually tourist hot spots like new york, like miami, that have clamped down on airbnb. now, sometimes it's because of lobbying from the hotel industry, but partly it's because of campaigning by housing advocates who say you're squeezing ordinary people out of homes that they need. do you think airbnb is contributing to the housing crisis in many big cities? i generally do not think that airbnb is contributing to the housing crisis in very large cities, at least not nearly to the extent that some of our critics have pointed out. and let me just kind of back up and say this. i don't want to ever say that airbnb is not contributing to any problems anywhere. you know, we built a platform. that platform is now used hundreds of millions of times a year.

we handle more money through airbnb than the gdp of the country of croatia. and so, just to give you a sense, we have nearly four million people a night staying in airbnb, and i can't be here and tell you that every single thing is something we can defend, because we're a platform, and when you build a platform, it's used for unintended consequences. so in the past, there have been people that have taken homes off the market. there have been major concerns from cities. so we've worked with cities around the world to establish sensible laws, regulations and restrictions about who can host and how many days they can host. at the same time, airbnb... let mejust give you an example. airbnb was accused of contributing to rising housing costs in new york city. 0ne yearago... there was always the experiment, what would happen if you banned airbnb? would housing prices come down? well, new york city played this experiment out a year ago. airbnb is banned to stay for fewer than 30 days. i'm here in new york and i'm in my sister's apartment, not an airbnb, for example. and what's happened is, since the ban, housing

prices have not gone down. in fact, they've gone up. and the other thing that's unfortunate is, hotel prices have also gone up. and so this city is now less affordable for travellers, but it is not more affordable for locals. so do you respect, though, when cities like new york, like miami, do decide to implement these new restrictions, even if you don't agree that they're going to work? yes. a city has a right to determine, you know, how they want to govern and what they want to restrict and not restrict. let me just say this, though, about... take a city like new york. it's not like "the city of new york" made a decision. if you were to ask broadly the city of new york, i think there's quite a bit of support for airbnb to exist, at least with some restrictions. i don't think the majority of people in the city of new york thought a ban was the best solution. it was a bit of a one size...kind of... it was like a bit of a giant hatchet approach. so i do think there is a more sensible solution. i respect cities' concerns that

many cities around the world have not built enough housing, and they need more housing, and i absolutely respect, like, the cities' desire to be able to control their destiny. i just want to again remind cities that i think we can be part of the solution, not be the problem. brian chesky, thank you for talking business with us today. thank you. well, that's it for this week. i do hope you enjoyed the show. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. you can also follow me on social media. i'm @tadhgenright. thank you for watching. see you soon. bye— bye. hello there. a relatively quiet start to our weekend, but the story is certainly set to deteriorate as we move into sunday. we have our first named storm of the season, storm ashley. now, this is going to be dominated by the strength of the winds, widespread gales across

the country, severe gales likely into western scotland. so, the met office has already issued an amber warning for the strength of the winds. that means that there is certainly going to be the risk of some disruption as that storm moves through. it really intensifies during the early hours of sunday morning. these frontal systems will bring some heavy rain, but the strongest of the winds to the southern flank of that low. more on that in just a moment. for the here and now, though, we have seen some rain today. it's moving its way steadily eastwards and it's allowing for an improvement. but we've still got some rain to clear away from lincolnshire, east anglia and south east england. it will do so during the early hours of the afternoon, and then we'll have some sunny spells coming through and it will feel quite pleasant out there in the sunshine. few scattered sharp showers in scotland, here with 13 degrees to the west, but we could see highs of 17 celsius, 63 fahrenheit, in south east england. clear skies will be replaced through the night from the west, though, as that storm set to arrive, a spell of very heavy rain moving its way into northern ireland and into western

fringes of scotland by dawn tomorrow morning. and just look at these temperatures. a very mild start for this stage in october. but here is storm ashley, then, rain sweeping its way steadily east and the strongest of the winds tucking in behind this low,as it continues to move to the northwest of the uk. so yes, we will see a spell of heavy rain sweeping its way eastwards, but once it does so, quite a clearance behind. that's going to allow for some sunshine to come through closest to the centre of the low. a frequent rash of showers piling in here. again, gale force gusts of winds quite widely across the country, with the strongest of the winds out to the west. but because the wind direction is coming from a southwesterly, in the sunshine once again, it is still going to feel warm. we could see 18 or 19 degrees, the overall high. pleased to say storm ashley eases out of the way. a ridge of high pressure is set to build monday into tuesday. quieter, sunnier spell of weather. we'll be able to go out

and pick up all those leaves. take care.

live from london, this is bbc news. a spokesperson for the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says a drone was launched towards his home in northern israel. he was not there at the time, and there were no casualties. hamas authorities say eleven people have been killed in al maghazi in central gaza. it comes after 33 are said to have died on friday in the jabalia refugee camp, where israel says hamas is regrouping. questions for the metropolitan police over its handling of accusations made against mohammed al fayed. should the former harrods owner have faced criminal charges before he died? and liam payne's father reads tributes outside the hotel in argentina where the one direction star died.

donald trump and kamala harris both campaign in the key battleground state of michigan. with just over two weeks to the us presidential election, we'll have a special report from georgia. we start with the latest on the war in the middle east. a spokesperson for israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu says a drone has been launched towards his home in the northern town of caesarea. these pictures show police outside the building on saturday morning. there's no sign of damage, but it's not clear exactly where the drone may have landed. neither mr netanyahu nor any member of his family was in the vicinity of the building at the time, and there are no reports of casualties. earlier, the israeli military said that three drones had been fired into israel from lebanon.

two were intercepted, but one was reported to have