Booking an Airbnb in Nashville? Read this first.

We're neighbors in Nashville, not a hotel lobby. But there's something visitors should know: a lot of the Airbnbs you see in Nashville's residential neighborhoods aren't supposed to be there — and the city itself said so.

How it works here

Nashville requires every short-term rental to hold a Metro permit. For a house that nobody lives in — the classic investment Airbnb — new permits are only issued in commercial and mixed-use districts: downtown, the Gulch, Music Row, commercial corridors. In the residential neighborhoods where listings love to advertise "local charm," new investor permits stopped being issued years ago.

The Airbnb you're looking at in a bungalow in East Nashville or a cottage off 12 South is one of three things: a legal owner-occupied rental (the host lives there), a legacy permit that survives until the property sells, or an illegal listing that never bothered with a permit at all.

What it does to the neighborhood

Every investor-owned short-term rental in a residential zone is a house removed from Nashville's housing stock, in a city where people who work here already can't afford to live here. It's also the rotating cast of strangers on a street full of kids, the 2 a.m. bachelorette trolley unload, the backyard speaker wall nobody consent-signed for.

If you still want a rental

• Look for the permit number in the listing. No number, no legitimacy.
• Prefer downtown, the Gulch, Midtown and commercial-corridor listings — that's where the city zones these.
• Prefer "hosted" / owner-occupied stays — a room or suite in someone's actual home is what the law had in mind.
• Or take the honest option: Nashville has plenty of hotels, most of them closer to Broadway than the listing you're eyeing.

Have a great trip. Just don't make our neighborhoods pay for it.

Resident? This page is for your guests — the neighborhood fight is over at the main page, and the reporting playbook is here.