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A couple of weeks back there was some debate in this forum about whether government regulators had he (technological) capacity to identify (and chase after) non-compliant STR’s.
If they don’t, they can turn to third-party contractors which “scrape” and match publicly-available data to do exactly that. This news story has examples of that in California and Canada:
This is a great use of technology. For those of us who insist on compliance and accuracy, knowing that this technology will help rout out noncompliant hosts is a great comfort. I cringe when I see a host, asking for help here or on forums like Reddit, their first line saying they need advice on how to skirt the local regulations.
Good for them! My data-scientist husband is driven mad by the fact that our city doesn’t do this. He has pointed out many times that he could spend a few hours and get them a list of all the AirBNB properties without permits if he had a list of the addresses that do have permits. Easy money for the city (taxes and permit fees) and a benefit to those of us who do follow the rules!
There is a full house rental down the street from my home (which I’ve had to report to ABB because of underage renting and parties) and they rent for weekends. Whole house rentals in the County are a 6 night minimum. Only in-home hosts can do shorter rentals like 1 night stays.
What I’d really like is that ABB, VRBO, and BDC actually shut these rentals down. Instead, I fear this data will be used against those of us who are just following the regulations.