Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I actually don't understand why Just about anyone - of course a small minority besides the real estate investment trusts, corporations formed to explicitly buy Oahu real estate, or people who got second/third mortgages to buy more homes just for AirBnb would actually support illegal rentals. We know Hawaiian Airlines supports it - lets face it, there are only so many hotel rooms. Illegal rentals just make no sense.
only the people who stand to personally profit from the illegal actions are for it. Everyone else is against it. I remember an article where someone was lamenting that tourism numbers would decline because of this bill. Is that a good or bad thing? We already have 10 million tourists coming, and that's at 85% hotel occupancy. Crack down on the illegal rentals and let the hotel occupancy rate be a semi-hard cap on tourism numbers. If the hotel industry wants more tourists at that point, revitalize and rebuild portions of the resort districts, such as waikiki.
tourists that stay in hotels spend more period. We need fewer higher spending tourists than more and more cheapskate tourists taxing our infrastructure and staying in rental units not paying TAT.
I do think some people Eileen try to loop around it. But I think it will be difficult. They would need a steady stream of people willing to commit and pay for a 30 day rental (through Airbnb for example) and trust that they will get their money back if they don’t stay that long. Plus Airbnb charges them a fee as a % of the rental cost. They won’t get that back. I think some will try it but it’s not going to be as easy as it sounds.
Out of curiosity, what do you feel is unfair about the law ? It is not a new law. It does not make a home illegal today that was not already illegal under the prior law. The new law just makes it easier to enforce the old law. All of these illegal operators bought property that was not zoned for short term vacation use prior to them even purchasing the property. So it’s hard to have sympathy for them. They bought these properties that were not zoned for vacation use and simply thumbed their nose at existing laws and did it anyway. Now the new law just makes enforcement more effective. Hard for me to feel sympathy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whtviper1
But why? Seriously?
I actually don't understand why Just about anyone - of course a small minority besides the real estate investment trusts, corporations formed to explicitly buy Oahu real estate, or people who got second/third mortgages to buy more homes just for AirBnb would actually support illegal rentals. We know Hawaiian Airlines supports it - lets face it, there are only so many hotel rooms. Illegal rentals just make no sense.
I think that it is fundamentally unfair to limit what guests I can have stay in my house simply because I decide to charge them for the inconvenience of their stay and their stay happens to be less than 30 days. And, make no mistake about it, even if I don't physically live at the property, this arrangement is an "inconvenience" as I have to go through things to get the place ready and take on additional risk of property damage of having people stay at my place.
I think that it is fundamentally unfair to limit what guests I can have stay in my house simply because I decide to charge them for the inconvenience of their stay and their stay happens to be less than 30 days.
If your home is next to a school - you can’t rent to a sex offender either even if longer than 90 days. Opposed to that also? What about your neighbors who were there before you - is that being a good neighbor having a revolving door of guests? No issues with all the real estate investment trusts simply formed to buy Oahu homes only to AirBnB them?
If your home is next to a school - you can’t rent to a sex offender either even if longer than 90 days. Opposed to that also? What about your neighbors who were there before you - is that being a good neighbor having a revolving door of guests? No issues with all the real estate investment trusts simply formed to buy Oahu homes only to AirBnB them?
Yes, fundamentally. If you are going to let a sex offender out of jail, then such offender shouldn't be restrained in where he can live. He completed his sentence. If the argument is that a sex offender is inherently dangerous and can't be trusted near a school because he may abuse children, then lock such people up for life and throw away the key, as prohibiting them from living close to schools is a feel-good measure that doesn't actually prevent these people from living near children.
What my neighbor thinks of me, I don't really care. We value strong property and association rights in this country. Such a law/enforcement mechanism runs contrary to these values in my view.
Auwe! This is Hawaii, you should get along with your neighbors.
Life is short. One with can be peaceful and serene as a good neighbor. Or, stress folks out - rally the neighborhood to ban short term rentals - as a bad neighbor.
Personally, I think they should allow Airbnb to operate with the following restrictions (with zero exceptions) -
1) You can only rent out a portion of the home not to exceed 50% of the floor area
2) The homeowner must reside full time in the house (tenants cannot rent the unit out)
3) Off-street parking must be provided if the guest needs a car
4) Pay GET and TAT on all income received
5) Allow the state to collect rental income data from Airbnb and other home sharing sites - full transparency on the homeowners part
6) Pay an additional to be determined tax to level the playing field with hotels as they pay property taxes that are 4X that of homeowners; this tax may be in the 4-6% range on the rental income received. This is in addition to GET and TAT.
If someone wants to deal with the headache and pay all of this overhead to have complete stranger guests at their home for compensation, go at it. I would suspect that introducing such onerous/costly requirements would greatly reduce the pool of vacation rentals and provide a higher ratio of responsible homeowner vacation rental operators that are more respectful of their neighbors. But would not be an outright ban which is the first of its kind in the nation.
All the anti vacation rental people seem to be of the mindset that we should focus on bringing in the wealthy big-dollar spenders instead of cheapskates that want to save a buck by going with Airbnb et al. Sounds easy enough. Riiight. I'm of the mindset that the younger generation isn't just necessarily cheapskates, they are just of a very different political mindset compared to previous generations and this greatly affects the way they spend money on their vacations. While I don't necessarily agree with their political motivations and ideologies, they are clearly far more anti-corporation (i.e. hotels) and anti-big business (i.e. hotels) than previous generations. They may be ignorant to the fact that going with vacation rentals vs hotels actually hurts the economy (hotel workers, supporting staff, etc) more than it helps it... they simply don't care; they are blinded by an ideology. Period. To them, it's all about the "experience" that is anything but "structured". They want spontaneity. They want to take a gamble on their experience. Hotels are simply too predictable and boring. And this isn't going to change. You don't have to relate or understand it - it doesn't matter. But you need to be living under a rock to not recognize this massive demographic shift and how it's changing the way the tourism industry does business. The big baller spenders will always be there to drop many thousands when they visit Hawaii... but the ratio of these spenders is falling every year as the statistics clearly show.
I also don't buy the argument that closing the doors on these bargain tourists will yield only a net benefit to the state because they are stressing our resources while not contributing a commensurate amount in spending/taxes to offset the consumption of these resources. The whole idea that these travelers are a net negative to the state is beyond absurd. They may not yield the same "profit margin" as the big spenders, but they are not a net drain. If this is true, our political "leaders" had better come up with an emergency diversification plan for our economy... because we will be in very deep kim chee. We are a one hit industry wonder state. We have absolutely nothing else to offer the world.
The most bizarre part is that the city is eventually going to be handing out thousands of licenses to property owners to allow for perpetuity (should you continue to renew) the use of their home as a vacation rental. So for all the super anti vacation rental people... what if your neighbor ends up getting one of those licenses? Will you be able to petition their license? I would prefer to allow legal use across the board without any special lotteries or any of that nonsense. This way I feel like I would have more control of a situation should I end up with a neighbor that goes the vacation rental route and is disrespectful of his/her neighbors. With a "grandfathered" license that was legitimately won by lottery, I would have much much more anxiety.
Before all the forum members throw eggs at me, note that I am all about affordable housing and am the biggest proponent of bills that encourage more affordable housing in Hawaii. I also understand allowing vacation rentals does not help the affordable housing crisis. But if the above noted restrictions are implemented, I think the impact will be negligible as most of these homeowners would not rent portions of their homes out long term. The reduction in available rental units would be minimal. And these homeowners can now offer a product that not only many travelers want - they demand.
I'm sure the conclusion here is that I am renting out property short term. SURPRISE! I don't. I have never rented to a short term guest. I even own units in Waikiki buildings that allow short term rentals (actually legit ones) and they are all rented long term. In fact, I don't even allow my tenants to rent rooms out short term (I have been asked multiple times by multiple tenants). But I do believe an outright ban is excessive and that some type of compromise should have been made.
All the anti vacation rental people seem to be of the mindset that we should focus on bringing in the wealthy big-dollar spenders instead of cheapskates that want to save a buck by going with Airbnb et al. Sounds easy enough. Riiight.
I also don't buy the argument that closing the doors on these bargain tourists will yield only a net benefit to the state because they are stressing our resources while not contributing a commensurate amount in spending/taxes to offset the consumption of these resources.
While I, or anyone else, has firm data, after perusing AirBnB ads for the past couple of years - my opinion is the target audience is not bargain tourists, and I suspect bargain tourist are very much a minority of the AirBnb rentals, at least on Oahu.
Where it got out of control is not renting out a bedroom to a bargain tourist which I think could've stayed under the radar, but rather more and more luxury homes appearing on the site renting for several hundreds of dollars a night - the minority of listings were becoming a bedroom or two in a house shared with the owner. You had a momentum of residents of not only Oahu purchasing these homes for the sole use of short term vacation rentals and real estate investment trusts purchasing homes to rent out solely for short term rentals. It got out of control and people got fed up.
While I, or anyone else, has firm data, after perusing AirBnB ads for the past couple of years - my opinion is the target audience is not bargain tourists, and I suspect bargain tourist are very much a minority of the AirBnb rentals, at least on Oahu.
Where it got out of control is not renting out a bedroom to a bargain tourist which I think could've stayed under the radar, but rather more and more luxury homes appearing on the site renting for several hundreds of dollars a night - the minority of listings were becoming a bedroom or two in a house shared with the owner. You had a momentum of residents of not only Oahu purchasing these homes for the sole use of short term vacation rentals and real estate investment trusts purchasing homes to rent out solely for short term rentals. It got out of control and people got fed up.
Bingo. This existed for decades without too much of a problem because the people who did it mostly stayed under the radar and tried to be respectful of their neighbors. The society we live in nowadays is the opposite. People are entitled. When the bill was up for consideration, look at all these lawbreakers and tax evaders blatantly admitting to breaking laws and feeling totally entitled to do whatever they way, screw the neighbors and other locals. Its all about making money for yourself, who cares about zoning and other laws? If STVU owners want to point the finger at anyone, they should point it at themselves and their blatant greed. Because it's their fault that they pissed people off to the point where the city council voted 9-0 in favor of stricter enforcement of current laws. I sincerely hope that anyone illegally renting out their property will be caught, forced to pay back federal, state, TAT/GET, and higher RPT assessment. They have no shame and remorse at what they're doing to other locals, I will have no remorse if they get assessed with years of back taxes and penalties.
I thought the new law required people to post either the physical address of the property location or the Non-conforming Use permit number (if not located in a resort zone) in all hosting platform sites or advertisements.
Out of curiosity I browsed through Airbnb today and was surprised to see so many listing on Oahu with no Nonconforming Use Permit number or physical address. Some listed a Tax Account number but I believe they are supposed to list the NUC number.
It looks like a lot of illegal rentals still operating. One I saw was an entire house, waterfront, in Hawaii Kai for only $120 per night and a 3 night minimum. They showed a tax ID number but not a Non-conforming Use Permit.
Anyway, I hope the “crack-down” gets cracking soon.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
