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We purchased our vacation home (project) just under 2 years ago, with the plan to offset costs over the next 15 years until retirement with short term rentals. Now the town is severely curtailing STRs & cutting rental days to 90/year arbitrarily in some areas. We’re in a zone that may be ineligible for rentals if sold, which will crater our investment’s value (since other zones a few blocks away will allow unlimited rental days & the ability to obtain permits).
This is happening across the country & it seems that Air is just hoping hosts will fight this battle and win without legal or other support. With the amount of $$$ Air and VRBO collect, shouldn’t they be working to at least seed some lawsuits or otherwise support their hosts (lifeblood) ?
That’s exactly how it is. Airbnb knows that there is a seemingly endless supply of hosts. If hosts get cut off because of new community regulations, Airbnb is sure others will sign up and start hosting.
If Airbnb were going to try to fight the battle of increasing STR regulations in every city, state, and nation, the legal costs would be endless!
That response doesn’t make any sense. This community is essentially being cut out from STRs. There cannot be new hosts, and many popular destinations are suffering the same fate. Air should have a national strategy that’s based on property rights in the US and should be better supporting hosts in order to ensure their own business.
Is there reasoning put forth by the powers that be as to why your area may have heavy restrictions and others nearby not? There are often good, understandable reasons for restrictions.
Local homeowners suddenly finding themselves surrounded by strs and a constant, ever-revolving parade of strangers, in what were formerly friendly, family-oriented neighborhoods (what about their property values?), people who live and work in the area not being able to find affordable housing, party houses that disturb the neighbors, etc.
And how will it crater your investment’s value if sold? There are plenty of people who are looking for homes to buy who actually plan to live in them themselves, not use them as str investments nor want live in an area full of vacation rentals. If all the areas surrounding you are allowing strs, your home would be of more value to those types of prospective home buyers, not less.
Airbnb has no specific interest in whether this area or that has restrictions placed on strs that tanks hosts’ business. It’s an international company and their interest is in their profits. If your particular little area is restricting strs but there are plenty of new hosts signing up in areas where there aren’t such restrictions, why would they care? They’ll only pay attention if their profits start to plummet. And why should they be fighting for something that local residents and therefore their local govts. object to? Would you want some billion dollar corporation to have the power to override what is important to you and your neighbors?
Airbnb can’t have a national strategy because it’s not a national issue. In the US federal system of government, the 50 state governments regulate property rental. And in many states it’s actually a local issue. So a state may have little regulation but a local community will decide they are in favor of regulation.
And that’s just in the US. Airbnb is international.
Here’s an example of where Airbnb spent money to try to “support hosts.” They spent over 3 million dollars in one community to try to win a referendum and lost. Where does that money come from? Host and guest fees. I don’t want to pay higher fees as a guest or host to support hosts in communities that don’t want unregulated Airbnbs. It has to be local control unless the STR business is violating the US Constitution.
There are a number of potential motivations for local legislation restricting STRs.
These include (not exhaustive list) parking, gentrification, supply of long-term housing, transience vs long-term residents and noise/disturbance of neighbors.
So ONE thing Airbnb IS doing is addressing the party/noise/disturbance issue to try to remove that as a reason to restrict STRs.
The first thing you do if intending to host is to find out what the local regulations are and if they are going to change.
I host in New South Wales, Australia.
We had new regulations come in during October 2021.
I can host 365 nights a year.
Our state capital Sydney, only allows 180 nights a year.
Ninety minutes north of me there is a push for 90 nights a year.
These regulations had been flagged for the previous 3 years.
It only took a phone call to our council to find out.
Airbnb are international, they have no interest in getting into conflicts with various local governments. They prefer to go with the flow and not make waves…why would they fight? It will only cost them cash from their fat profits!
Before my husband and I started hosting, I read our municipal and county zoning regulations to determine what was legal for us to do, Airbnb-wise. I also searched online records for our community’s planning and zoning board meeting minutes, going back more than a year, searching for any topic related to terms like short term rental, Airbnb, B&B, etc.
I do that periodically to ensure that the board isn’t talking about issues that could lead to STR regulation in our area. So far, we don’t have any.
As a host, doing that kind of research is my responsibility.
Since the guests pay the remainder of the fee and that impacts what we can charge in our nightly rate, it’s not really fair to imply that it’s only 3%. Some hosts use the model where they pay all the fee and some folks think Airbnb might eventually switch to that for everyone.
That said, Airbnb’s fees are in line with others like ebay, Rover, Uber, etc.
The OP seems to be American, but even Americans are woefully uninformed about how the government works. I mentioned the 50 states but there are over 12k government entities in the US. So a host has to be aware of Federal law with regard to things like discrimination. Insurance is regulated by the state. A state might also have a law protecting rental properties from local regulation but the local government will still handle zoning, licensing, code enforcement, street parking and so on.
IF my community were considering legislation then I’d have a chance to participate in the discussion.
My general impression is that those who live in the properties that are STRs often fare better, or should, because many of the concerns that favor legislation aren’t present when a homeowner is renting out part of their property. By being part of the local conversation such owners can introduce those distinctions so that any legislation is targeted to the community’s concerns.
When I was looking to buy a house in VA and host str I consulted with the realtor and the town manager before buying the house. I was assured that I could have a str. It was a very small town and no written rules about this.
The day I was picking up the truck in AZ and getting ready to move, I get a call from the town manager telling me “there might be a problem”. Well, there was a problem in that they considered the rental detached from the main house. I fought them for almost a year going to all the town meetings with my realtor to hear them talk in circles.
I finally gave up, put it on the market and moved on to a larger town that had rules concerning str’s.
My current str is within my house and every time I considered buying a house here, I emailed the town to see if a str was possible in that location. I also read the regulations on str in the town and knew basically what you could and could not do.
When I was making an offer on this house, I talked to the city again about this specific property and was told it should be fine. I would have backed out of the sale if it had not been.
The regulations could change here, but hopefully not in the near future.
Yes, and neighbors generally don’t have complaints about in-home strs. It’s the absentee “hosts” whose properties often cause problems that people take issue with. Even if the host has CCTV, tries to vet guests carefully, has a local person to go over and deal with disturbances, once the neighbors have had to put up with a ruckus, or have their driveway blocked with guest cars, it’s too late, the damage has been done.
Most of the time, neighbors wouldn’t even be aware of a host renting out a room or suite in their home to strs unless you told them. For all they know, those people are friends or family.
You should be less aggressively uninformed. They changed the regulations just this month. When we purchased it 2 years ago, these rules didn’t exist. This is all in my original post. Sheesh. People are weird and ready to jump on people condescendingly for no reason whatsoever.
Regulations don’t just change with no warning. These issues are usually debated in the public arena, like city council meetings, with local residents being given an opportunity for input. They are discussed in local newspapers and online publications, local online forums and hosting groups. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly and these things are usually some time in the making.
It is wise to engage with the local community where one’s rental is and pay attention to local issues.
One of the reasons locals are often against “investor hosts” is that they do not engage with the local community or the neighbors.
It’s certainly possible that there were no murmurings of objections to strs in your area when you purchased your property 2 years ago, but if you were completely broadsided by this regulation until it was announced, that’s what other posters have been trying to get across- it means you haven’t been paying attention to local issues.
Sure, everything that happens influences what we can and can’t do, economics is relative, but Airbnb is in direct competition with VRBO, Bookings.com, etc. And the latter two are not only about 3x more expensive to the host, but deliver less and are also an absolute quagmire to deal with at times. Besides it is hard to access to what degree Airbnb guest fees are influencing the host, by the numbers doesn’t looks like much, considering Airbnb has the lion’s share of the STR market, by far.
I rather have 3% charged to me by Airbnb from their guests who have already accepted the fees they are being charge by them.
Then again there is Direct Booking which saves everyone money, which now are 50%+ of my yearly 80+ bookings, could be because of the above reality.
