The Queensland government will probe the impacts of the short-term rental market on home affordability and demand amid the state's housing crisis.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles says the investigation will look at how much housing is used for short-term rentals, enabled by providers such as Airbnb and Stayz, and the impact of that on other home seekers.
He says short-term providers don't share their data, so the government doesn't have an accurate picture of the sector.
"Some people say it's having a massive impact, some people say it has very little impact, so let's get to the bottom of that before we can consider what appropriate responses might be," Mr Miles told reporters on Tuesday.
He denied there were any plans afoot to prevent homeowners from using their properties how they choose.
"We're not suggesting that they should be prevented, we are simply wanting to understand what contribution that short term rental accommodation and its increase over recent years is having to the current housing affordability crisis," Mr Miles added.
The probe comes as the government prepares to host a housing crisis summit with the property industry and social service providers on Thursday to work out possible solutions to the chronic housing shortage.
The Queensland Council of Social Services says more than 10,000 people are seeking specialist homeless services every month and there are about 46,000 people on the social housing waiting list.
Surging interstate migration and a extremely low rental vacancy rate have exacerbated the problem in recent months.
The University of Queensland study on Tuesday found that housing demand is set to outpace population growth.
UQ demographer Dr Elin Charles-Edwards said census data shows the number of households grew faster than the population between 2016 and 2021.
The structure of Queensland households is also changing with the average home shrinking from 2.6 people to 2.5 people in the same period.
Dr Charles-Edwards says growth in the number of households is occurring despite more baby boomers moving in with family or others, and adults under the age of 19 living with family.
She says some of that behaviour may be in response to the pandemic, but underlying housing demand is building up.
"People must be at the centre of any well-formed housing policy," she wrote in the report released on Tuesday.
"As Queensland's population continues to age, the demand for housing will outpace population growth."
The report said while older and younger adults moving in with other people or staying in the family home was a short-term solution for housing shortages, it wasn't sustainable for many.
The number of households in 2021 was also fewer than researchers expected, indicating it will rise.
"More research is needed to understand the drivers of these changes," Dr Charles-Edwards wrote.
"It is important to recognise however that these shifts likely represent future pent-up demand for housing that needs to be realised in the near to medium term."
