Online short-term rental services like Airbnb have become a wildly popular way for Vancouver residents to earn an extra buck.

Politicians at City Hall have taken note. They’ve repeatedly warned that so many people are renting their homes online that it is eating into the city’s rental stock. As of April 2017, there were almost 6,000 Vancouver listings on Airbnb, enough to have prompted the government to act. New regulations are on the way and a public-consultation period is scheduled to begin later this month.

Aside from our city’s good looks, there’s a reason that so many residents are breaking bylaws to rent their private homes to travellers passing through Vancouver. The money is excellent.

A comparison of average Airbnb booking prices across Canada reveals that Vancouver listings aren’t just the most expensive but the most expensive by far, compared to most other areas.

An “entire place” (which could be a condo, apartment, or entire house) located in the City of Vancouver rents for an average of $873 a week, according to information collected from the Airbnb website. That’s $45,396 a year (granted, only if a host manages to keep a place filled with guests every single week).

In neighbouring Richmond, the average price for a weekly rental quickly falls to $547. In Burnaby, it drops to $485. The price of a weekly rental in both New Westminster and Surrey is $437. In North Vancouver, the average price to rent an entire dwelling is $560.

Here are corresponding numbers for a selection of cities across Canada:

Victoria: $538
Calgary: $480
Edmonton: $451
Winnipeg: $349
Toronto: $699
Ottawa: $380
Montreal: $652
Quebec City: $419
Halifax: $484

Airbnb describes the numbers like this: “Estimates based on booking prices of listing an entire home with a similar location, season, listing type, and guest capacity.  How much host actually makes varies with their pricing, type and location of the listing, season, demand, and other factors.”

Renting a room, apartment, or entire home without a business licence is illegal in Vancouver. But Vancouver has accepted that Airbnb is here to stay and, instead of trying to ban the service outright, has drafted regulations to govern short-term rentals.

The proposed rules are posted online at vancouver.ca/short-term-rentals. People can weigh in at a public hearing that is likely going to begin sometime in late August.