The arrival of digital nomads will not fundamentally drive up a country’s or a city’s housing prices, as they usually only rent. Renting has no direct impact on the development of local housing prices. On the contrary, the influx of digital nomads can actually increase the income of most low-cost countries, since they will inevitably spend money locally.

Renting does have direct impact on housing prices. As the price landlords pay for units is based on rent they can get. If rent they can get goes up, so does the amount they are willing to pay.

more renters than apartments/homes => rents go up => cap rate goes up => new home prices go up. it isn't instant obviously, but if the renters keep coming and new developments don't accelerate, prices will keep going up. see bay area for a market that keeps going up for two decades or whatever.

> Renting has no direct impact on the development of local housing prices.

Ehh??? Sorry this is wholly untrue. Landlords get easy, often zero-deposit mortgages on houses and then let them out to make money. Of course this affects local house prices, because it absorbs housing stock.

Particularly in long-established, geographically bounded, attractive European towns and cities where there is no possibility of growing the housing stock fast enough to compete.

More to the point, the reason we know the arrival of digital nomads will drive up house prices is that they absolutely already have done, everywhere they have been courted.