Concerned about the effect of STRs on skyrocketing rents and tourists overrunning residential areas Oahu passed this law 8-1 and also requires a parking spot for STRs in residential areas.
Well, I wonder whether this is the beginning of a wave.
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STR legislation has been introduced in many tourist hotspots and cities around the world already. What do you mean by āthe beginning of the waveā?
OK. The middle? Gains momentum? Is building to high tide?
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When communities pass these I wish they would exempt in-home room rentals. The income helps keep people in their homes. In-home guests rarely bother neighbors and donāt take up potential rental apartments and houses.
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We must be speaking another language still have no clue what those terms have to do with short term rentals 
My point is that I donāt want to quibble or debate whether the kind of legislation that Oahu passed is at the beginning of a movement or just where it is in the context of local jurisdictions restricting STRs.
It seems to me the Oahu law is an important development because it is not just legislation that has been introduced but legislation that has passed, that passed with near unanimity, that if more laws like what Oahu just did were enacted here in the U.S., these restrictions that would seriously affect the STR business.
If other tourist/resort destinations in the U.S. took the Oahu law as a model that would be very concerning, donāt you think?
That was the motivation of the post: a specific U.S. example of a law that passed this week seriously affecting STRs in that location, which if it became a model for others would be a big problem for many STRs.
If youāre aware of other resort/tourist destinations in the U.S. that have passed laws restricting STRs to a minimum of 90 day rentals in tourist areas, 30 day minimums in residential areas I bet that this forum would be very interested to hear about that.
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Oops. Itās 90 days in residential areas, 30 days in resort areas. And it passed this month, not this week.
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Iām not sure this fits the scope of your interest because it seems like you keep shifting the point. An example that comes to my mind is New Jersey. Many communities have passed regulations basically outlawing STR unless they are owner occupied (home share). The example that sticks in my mind is the referendum that passed a couple of years ago.
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Thank you for sharing that.
So thatās another three.
So, I donāt think that thereās debate that these are important and concerning laws for STRs and that learning about them, the number of jurisdictions that have passed such laws and the kinds of restrictions imposed are worth learning about in this forum.
Or is there?
Those of us who have been hosting a long time feel that regulations are āold news.ā I see it as something that is going to continue to happen and when it happens to me Iāll decide what Iām going to do about it. There have been lots of debates about it in the past. Airbnb hosts tend to look at the positive aspects of what STR can do for a community. But if the referendum in NJ is any indication, a majority of residents donāt have the same positive opinion of STR in their communities.
My own political leanings tend to be in favor of regulation for the benefit of the whole community as opposed to treating private property rights as sacred. Iām also the owner of my airbnb which is on the same property where I live. Investor hosts have a different set of worries than I do.
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OK.
It was new news to me. I donāt want to distract community members here. So, if you as moderator or other moderators feel that thereās no āthere thereā I appreciate your comments above and please feel free to close the post if youād like.
Iād be quite happy to see remote investor hosts and those who do rental arbitrage regulated against.
Those are the places that have the most disruptive Airbnbs, the hosts donāt care about how their rentals impact neighborhoods. Hosts who live in the community where they host have a vested interest in being responsiible members of their community and maintaining good relations with their neighbors.
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I am an Australian host.
I live in the state of New South Wales.
My state passed laws in that came in November 2021 on STRs.
In Sydney you can host a maximum of 180 days, bookings over 21 days donāt count to this total - this is for an entire home.
Home share hosts are 365 days - shared entrance.
In my area of Northern Rivers, I can host 365 days a year, there are 24 entire homes in my town.
I could side step these limitations if they change because I could do a development application as tourist accommodation as my properties are all heritage listed, in the heritage precinct and our town is very keen to maintain these. A host who has a listing that is just a home in a residential
area would have serious problems
But 30 minutes away from me, the hosts are limited to 180 days and there is talk of Byron Bay being limited to 90 days per year - there are 3000 listings in the Byron area.
45 minutes away from me the STRās in a beach holiday area are also limited to 180 days, there have been many closures and price hikes on the ones that remain open to keep them viable. Only those who have an approved Development Application in the tourist areas are not affected.
We have also had massive price rises in home prices all over the country - mine have basically doubled in 2 years.
Housing has now become an election issue, as I live in one of the lower income, high unemployment areas and rents have also massively increased. My daughters home has gone from $350 to $550 a week over the last 2 years.
I have been watching the changing market as the new rules bite, but I also have issues with a private owner being made to feel responsible for property prices and high rents.
I have invested over 20 years in a particular type of housing, because of my love of heritage buildings. I have had some appalling long term tenants, and donāt want to go down that route again. I have been abused in the street because of my STR listings, that I am a greedy landlord and should make my homes available to families long term. I see this as a government issueā¦ā¦not mine as there has been no investment in housing, in my area for over twenty years. Average house prices in Sydney are now over a million dollars - how does social housing work at these prices?
I run at 85% occupancy, so there is obviously a need for this accommodation.
I look at the rules in London, Paris, New York and now Hawaii to see what is working and what isnāt.
Anyone coming newly to an adventure in STR will need to tread very carefully!
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Many owners/ hosts dont pay any attentionā¦until the restrictions happens to them. Welcome to reality and govt overreach. This ending scenario has been building momentum, and been in the works for quite a while. Hawaii has a love/hate relationship with their touristsā¦added to the challenges of limited resources and costs of housing and living in paradise.
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The problem is that those kinds of regulations also impact and affect the good caring STR owners within the neighborhood and community. My town said that there is no legal way to ban remote investor hosts but still allow local investor community neighborhood hosts.
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It concerns me. Iām on Maui and the council will see this and try to do it here as well. They have already put a moratorium on new STRs for the next two years. Then the next thing on their agenda is to take areas that are zoned apartment districts and change them into LTRs, even though people purchased the condo units to be short-term vacation rentals (there is more to it than that, there is a long story about why in an apartment district they were allowed to make short-term vacation rentals in the first place (1980s), but Iām not going to get into all of that here right now). They will of course āgrandfatherā the folks that currently run them as STVRs, but as soon as those folks sell their condo, it would have to change to an LTR or owner-occupied. They were citing a lack of affordable housing and over-tourism.
However, if they make the change, these units will never be āaffordableā for the locals as there are HOAs, Special Assessments, insurance, taxes, and costs to cover mortgages of these incredibly expensive condos. Then there is the issue of losing all of these STVRs who are generating tax income for the state of Hawaii and Maui. And wages for locals that are housecleaners and maintenance, etc. Iām not sure they are thinking this whole thing through.
Anyway, the council tried to propose this last year with a lot of pushback, so it has not yet passed. I guess weāll see what the future holds.
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I hope I donāt step into a minefield here, but on government over-reach my sense is that ā in general, not limited to STRs ā entrepreneurs (and I love entrepreneurs) these days tend to have win-at-all-costs mentality with no sense of values beyond money. So they push the envelope. THEY over-reach. Then government gets involved to regulate, and they tend to over-regulate. Even if the government did that intervention reasonably these entrepreneurs would push the envelope yet again. So, Iām not pointing fingers here.
One of the reasons I posted this story is that it does affect us. We have no interest in government over-reaching, but also no interest in these entrepreneurs over-reaching, as some are.
This forum can help us become/stay informed, so that if regulation comes to our areas we might meet with our representative or attend hearings, make comments that helps our representatives make astute regulations, protecting the community of renters, for example, certainly protecting home-shared hosts, and Iād like if possible ā this is me ā to protect those (not me right now) who want to make an investment in an STR in their community (Iām thinking one or two).
Also, becoming/staying informed helps us inform our community. Perhaps one of these maximum entrepreneurs is a member here. We can help inform each other.
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as Iāve already mentioned STR legislation has already been passed in many cities and resorts around the world.
I donāt find it concerning I think itās a good thing to help control the number of STRs in an area which lead to long term rental shortages for local people
Legislation which includes licensing also help to weed out get rich quick hosts who donāt care about how their guests impact on local communities
This is an international forum so not all of us will be impacted by what happens in the US
In London we have had 90 day restrictions for five years and itās one of fastest growing STR areas
Iām not suggesting that laws regulating STRs are per se bad, but HOW theyāre done seems to be to be concerning. Thatās why I referenced
Yes, London has 90 day restrictions. But those are entirely different than the 90 day minimum stay requirements in the Oahu law. And that 90 day restriction ā a max set of days for home-share hosts ā doesnāt apply at all in the Oahu law, nothing reported in the article for home share hosts at all.
I agree. Iāve read nothing from anyone here who would debate that.
I understand that this is an international forum and that not everyone will be [directly/immediately] affected by what happens in the U.S. Still, I think that jurisdictions take note of what other jurisdictions do. I live in the U.S. but take note of laws in Europe ā and best practices ā that one day might migrate here. Like Europeās way of displaying all-in costs in the nightly rate. A good thing, I believe, though with a slightly higher (2%?) occupancy tax cost. Or perhaps Europeās regulations of social media companies. I suspect that Silicon Valley is taking note of them.
Iām supposing that if the Oahu law, or one like it, were enacted or even proposed in London that STR Hosts there in the UK would find it . . . concerning,