Recently another county in my market banned new short-term rentals in a tourist area within the county. This is the third such ban in my service area in just the past few years. The result has been a significant devaluation of homes in these areas. In my opinion, this is a direct violation of property rights, short-term rental owners should have the same rights as long-term rental owners. The only difference is politics and the fact that most of these homes are in affluent areas that get politicians’ attention.
The reasoning that the government officials are using is that the workers in the area can’t afford to live there. This nonsense is just political gibber jabber that sounds good in the headlines but has no merit. Workers haven’t ever been able to live in most resort areas, the price of homes and rent has always been too high for folks who work in those industries and always will be. Even if a $2m home falls fifty percent, the local school teacher or policeman still won’t be able to afford to live there.
Until short-term rentals became an option, the only people who could afford a home in these areas were the wealthy. Once STRs became an option the middle class could also afford these homes as long as they could supplement the mortgage with rental income. Now that STRs are banned it will just go back to the wealthy owning the homes and the workers will still have nowhere to live. If these governments are truly concerned about the workers they should utilize the fees, (and there are a lot of fees), to be earmarked specifically for worker housing rather than being thrown into the general fund to be spent on other programs.
I understand that some full-time residents have a hard time with short-term rentals, but I would guess that a large majority of them knew that vacation rentals were in the area when they bought their homes. Just like the couple that bought a home by the airport and then complained that the jets were too noisy! Yes, some short-term rentals can have a negative impact on full-time neighbors, but the only difference between a problem short-term renter and a problem long-term renter is that the short termer will be gone in a few days!
Just to be clear, I am not advocating that we just let short-term rentals run unmanaged. Local governments need to have regulations, enforce them, and utilize the tourism income to pay for positive attributes to the community. If a homeowner continues to violate regulations, then they should lose their right to rent, either short-term or long-term.
In an attempt to appease some critics, some counties are limiting STRs to a small percentage of owners, again, to “ensure local workers have a place to live”. Still nonsense! Limiting STRs to 10-25% of a community does absolutely nothing for affordability. Vacation homeowners are not going to rent their million-dollar homes full-time. The whole appeal of a vacation rental is to use it when you want and rent it when you’re not. Long-term renters eliminate that possibility.
I’ve also heard some county officials say that it’s not their responsibility to ensure someone can afford a vacation home, and they’re right, it’s not, and no one has asked for that. That’s just a cop-out answer from a typical politician. I am advocating for the same property rights for short-term rental owners as long-term rental owners. It’s pretty simple, property rights are just that, rights. Politicians should not be taking property owner rights away to give the appearance of caring about housing affordability when in reality it is just making it worse.
Just my 2 cents, thank you for your time.
Brad