(Washington, DC) — Governor Spencer Cox is partially blaming short-term rentals for Utah’s housing shortage. Speaking at a conference organized by the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy, Cox told an audience that rental platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo are leading to a run on recently-built properties. The governor noted that nearly 20-thousand properties are now listed as short-term rentals in Utah, which means prospective homeowners and long-term residents are frozen out.