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We're down the road from a VT ski town. While there are ample hotel and condo rentals on the mountain, and some just outside of it, there are those who want an entire house, with all the stereotypical trappings of VT. It's almost as though they view the state as a Disney park.
Houses once occupied year-round by families are now empty part of the year and rent on AirBnb for a ridiculous amount of money. At least once every couple of months potential residents post to a local FB group begging to find affordable housing.
Not picking on you but I'm using your statement as a marker.
Where I am the VRBOs are generally not "affordable". While a few are (and they are the ones that don't have much use as a VRBO so the owners, typically Realtors or small time investors, will have them rented as less than a year multi-month rentals for people waiting for a house to be built or who are looking for one to buy.
Most of the VRBOs would be sold for high multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars with a couple overtopping a million. Even the one beside me has been on the market for $700K (although that owner, a real estate agent, always overprices her listings).
1. Read your covenants.
Is there anything in them to give you leverage?
2. Do your covenants have provisions to allow the community to form an HOA with some community jurisdiction?
Do your state laws permit formation of an HOA?
3. Check with your city.
Are there regulations on rentals? If so, learn them thoroughly.
4. Are there any regulations limiting the number of tenants?
How about parking regulations, assuming there will be numerous vehicles for 14 people.
5. Check your noise ordinances, if any.
Don't let tenants violate noise ordinances without reporting them.
6. Don't be shy about engaging an attorney for assistance with any of these topics.
Here is what’s happened, so far. 87 neighbors met to discuss the options. We signed 2 petitions, for an immediate injunction and to ensure that all existing STVRs are licensed and taxed accordingly, to take to council. The original covenants are still in effect and several of them could be pertinent. The young man who owns the STVR showed up with his lawyer. I’ll give him credit for that.
Under no circumstances would this neighborhood want an HOA.
We are getting legal guidance, not sure who is paying for it, but there’s plenty of money here. I imagine we’ll be passing the hat at some point.
There is a Town Meeting with the mayor and council, which is open to every neighborhood, on March 19. My city is playing catch up on this, and is looking to Savannah, Tybee Island and Atlanta’s existing guidelines in order to get something implemented asap. As Savannah and Tybee crack down, our city becomes more of a target. There were 57 STVRs here at the time of our meeting.
I must confess, I had no clue when I first saw the thread title. Took me a while to figure it out myself. Not a common term for me and I was a realtor for almost 4 years.
Not picking on you but I'm using your statement as a marker.
Where I am the VRBOs are generally not "affordable". While a few are (and they are the ones that don't have much use as a VRBO so the owners, typically Realtors or small time investors, will have them rented as less than a year multi-month rentals for people waiting for a house to be built or who are looking for one to buy.
Most of the VRBOs would be sold for high multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars with a couple overtopping a million. Even the one beside me has been on the market for $700K (although that owner, a real estate agent, always overprices her listings).
I understand your point.
Homes in mountain towns which are ski area adjacent won't fetch as much as those in a ski town, which don't demand prices as high as those on the slope. Add ski on/off and the price goes up that much more.
The homes on the ski transportation routes get a good buck.
Where I'm at, it's off in the woods, near the snowmobile trails which double as hiking trails in the off season. Then there's hunting, too. Homes in town and outside of town are being scooped up. Given there aren't a lot of homes, losing them here and there for STRs has negatively impacted businesses in the area. There is only so far employees are willing to drive for a modest pay check.
Good story about this on NPR today, regarding what the influence of STRs has had on employment at National Parks in some locations, like Yellowstone. They spoke about Gardiner, MT, which is right outside of the north gate and one of the few "close" towns. An average home price is around $900,000 because investors or out of town owners have bought up most of the homes (pop. 900) and are using them as STRs.
The lede was about a $40M grant the NPS is getting to build more employee housing in parks like Yellowstone. I know a lot about this as I have a family member who works for the NPS at the Grand Canyon. Housing up there is horrible and in short supply. It's so bad for some of the areas outside of the park that employers like McDonald's are buying mobile homes and putting them on their property for employees to live in.
I must confess, I had no clue when I first saw the thread title. Took me a while to figure it out myself. Not a common term for me and I was a realtor for almost 4 years.
I also have to stop and think everytime it "pops up" in my notifications. Acronyms are not always useful.
Good story about this on NPR today, regarding what the influence of STRs has had on employment at National Parks in some locations, like Yellowstone. They spoke about Gardiner, MT, which is right outside of the north gate and one of the few "close" towns. An average home price is around $900,000 because investors or out of town owners have bought up most of the homes (pop. 900) and are using them as STRs.
The lede was about a $40M grant the NPS is getting to build more employee housing in parks like Yellowstone. I know a lot about this as I have a family member who works for the NPS at the Grand Canyon. Housing up there is horrible and in short supply. It's so bad for some of the areas outside of the park that employers like McDonald's are buying mobile homes and putting them on their property for employees to live in.
RM
When the floods on the Yellowstone River nearly wiped out Gardiner a few years ago, there was a lot of footage of an RV park that got wiped out. A lot of people didnt realize that that was workforce housing....there's no other place for the workers to live.
Most jurisdictions have zoning laws that define stays of less than 30 days to be 'transient or hotel' use which would not be allowed in a residential zone (at least, without a variance). Additionally most jurisdictions would have ordinances requiring that a hotel or lodging property have a business license.
Of course, nowadays a lot of the problem is that obscure investment corporations are buying up these properties and it's hard for municipalities to track down a real live human to talk to about the violations. In many cases, the corporation owns hundreds of properties across the country, through a variety of shell corporations. There's no actual leasing manager or office that a municipality can contact about violations. It's such a huge mess.
Airbnb really screwed things up in a lot of places, although I'm surprised that OP is experiencing a new STR now. It seemed to me that that market shrank a whole lot during the pandemic.
What's lost in some of this is that these VRBO/STR rentals are in tourist areas with amenities that draw those tourists. Ideally the tourists will soak up the cost of maintaining these amenities for the general public (examples would be beaches. In Ocean City, Maryland the beaches are free. The City gets its cut from parking fees and a local meals and drinks tax as well as a separate lodging tax).
Without tourists paying those taxes and fees the local property tax base would have to maintain those amenities, that's the Devil's bargain.
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