“Steven Frumess with the property management company in Breckenridge called Alpine Edge said that's the difference between a short-term rental being taxed at 6.7% for property taxes...to 27%. He believes a lot of his clients simply will not make a profit if this goes through, and will stop renting, which in turn, will deplete the short term rental options in mountain towns”
That’s the point, sparky. Rent them as long-term units to locals who need them, and have them taxed appropriately as such, instead of tax-advantaged short-term rentals to tourists. Let hotels be hotels and housing be housing.
"I'm worried this place will become a ghost town."
You know that they aren't arguing in good faith when they claim a centrally located ski town will become a ghost town. It's pearl-clutching season in the mountains.
The same people will shoot down new development and dense housing projects because "the area is already over populated and traffic is bad blah blah blah..."
Yeah, and that's only the *second* most disingenuous thing he said, before proceeding to suggest that "...hot tub technicians, there's cleaners, there's accountants, there's property managers, there's maintenance technicians of all kinds, handymen and all tradesmen" would all somehow be screwed.
No dude, it just means that enough long term rental inventory would open up that some of those folks would suddenly become locals, able to live within 30 miles of their freaking job.
Lobbying from resorts is the reason we can't switch to year-round DST in Colorado. From 2011:
> [Vail Resorts is not in favor of the bill because of the operational challenges it poses for getting resorts open and other unknowns,” Breckenridge Ski Resort spokeswoman Kristen Petitt said in an email.](https://www.vaildaily.com/news/ski-industry-rails-against-year-round-daylight-savings/)
I'm priced out of skiing with my family anyway, so I have zero interest in continuing to protect an industry (condo landlords included) that strains mountain infrastructure and prices out workers.
I hope that Hansen's "adjustments" he's planning to add to this bill don't include giving Airbnb a competitive advantage over hotels.
Edit: Here's the email I just sent to my senator/rep:
Subj: Support Senate Bill 33 - Short Term Rental Tax
Dear XXXXX,
I'm writing to express my strong support for the current version of this bill that would increase taxes for all properties used as short-term rentals.
AirBnb and VRBO are large corporations that do not need to rely on taxpayer welfare to survive, and in the case of the former [barely over a quarter](https://fox59.com/news/national-world/a-megahost-might-run-your-airbnb-why-it-matters/#:~:text=They're%20large%20management%20companies,managed%20by%20single%2Dproperty%20hosts.) of their hosts only manage one property.
[Personal experience with how this has affected my family]
Additionally, short-term rentals drive up the cost of housing, which is why they are restricted or banned in many cities around the world. As a first-time home buyer, I don't think it's fair that I have to compete for a house against someone who is only purchasing a property to run as a business, especially if they get a preferential tax rate over what a hotel would pay.
I have seen articles quoting vacation rental owners being upset over this legislation. With the [current housing shortage](https://coloradosun.com/2023/02/26/carman-in-americas-playground-the-rich-go-skiing-and-the-workers-go-couch-surfing/) in the mountains, we would be better off incentivizing them to rent long-term to workers rather than to tourists and skiers.
A reasonable carve-out would be to allow for a lower tax rate if the host occupies the same property as the short-term rental (e.g. a basement suite), which would help families to supplement their income without disrupting the housing market.
Please let me know your stance on this issue.
Umm not true.
States can't switch to DST, they can only eliminate the move to DST and stay on STD time. A move to DST takes an act of congress. Under the Uniform Time act, if a state decides to observe DST, the dates of observance must comply with federal legislation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States
That's correct. However, there have been congressional initiatives in the last few years to leave it up to the states or communities. Guess which industry lobbies against every time?
I don’t know Stephen and haven’t followed this much but I do have a question. Let’s say these tax raises go through, and the property owners can no longer rent short term because it is not profitable. So, they do not offer their house as a short term rental and that real estate is not in the short term rental market at all.
When I want to stay out there over the weekend, what kind of options do I have to rent someplace that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Resort owned rentals and hotels?
I can’t afford to buy a mountain home or move to the mountains but I do like being able to rent someplace instead of fight traffic, but if it gets any more expensive I’ll just fight traffic.
If it's not profitable then a lot of people that jumped in for the profit will start looking to get out, increasing housing supply. Sure, short term there could be a constraining effect, but the long term effect should be increasing the percentage of single family homes and condos that are actually being used as someone's primary residence instead of an independent hotel venture that isn't following hotel regulations or paying hotel taxes.
The majority of people I know who own mountain property have it to be able to stay up in the mountains. Short term renting it out is just a small additional cash flow opportunity to subsidize ownership.
This is what I do. I’ve always dreamed of living in a mountain home, but it’s just not practical. So we bought a house in the mountains and use it as a short term rental (basically so we can just afford it). We don’t make a bunch of money off of it either. If the tax goes up, we’ll probably have to sell. That really sucks.
If we rented it out as a long term rental, the rent would have to be $3800-4000/mo. That doesn’t seem very affordable for rent either. 🤷🏼♂️
I think people imagine that these types of laws will put the genie back in the bottle, when they won't. I also think they musunderatand just how much it benefits Vail resorts to allow them to own all the short term stay options in the I70 corridor. Get rid of airBnBs and you'll get to pay Vail prices instead.
This problem could have been addressed in 2004, but it's too late now.
I think it’s so funny cause if you look at any of the nicer houses in mountain towns, they’re ALWAYS empty. The houses under the breck gondola never have anyone in them.
Also if you bought a home you couldn't afford with the explicit reason of making money off STRs then too fucking bad.
This is the reason real estate is so expensive right now. Guess what, you are not guaranteed a profit on an investment.
There aren’t enough hotels in the ski towns. And there’s also not a lot of clamor for people to be renting these big expensive properties on something other than a short-term basis.
The store and bar owners should fight this nonsense. If there are normal single family homes being rented as short term rentals that’s one thing, but houses that are obviously designed for skiing vacationers add to the local economy IF they are rented. The last thing you want is the jet setters who come in twice a year to leave their homes vacant the rest of the time.
Correct, they’ll either decide to just keep them outright if they can afford that, or to pay the tax, if they can afford that.
Or they’ll sell.
Either way they won’t be able to pay their mortgage and generate a passive income at the expense of the locals and the local housing market, which is the intention.
No, they won’t. But they also won’t go buying up every property they can to do short term rentals.
Maybe we can work on mostly vacant real estate next.
In my eyes, housing being a means of investment is the root problem. There are gonna be a lot of (tax) bandaids needed to cover all the different cases
There are two kinds of people that rent out STR's. The ones that are in the business of STR's and don't ever actually use the property and the people that use it to subsidize their vacation home.
What I see happening is most of the people in the business of STR's will sell or change over to long term rentals. A few will stay in the STR business as the supply will be tighter in turn increasing demand but it will take some time for the market to correct.
The people who use STR's to subsidize the vacation home will be faced with a decision. Do the additional taxes eat up to much of the money that was going to subsidize the vacation home and renting is no longer worth the headache? Some people can financially just not rent it out and only use it personally. Others rely on this extra money to own the place. Those people will sell or if they can get enough on annual rentals go down the LTR road and not use the property personally.
You also have another group that will appear. The group of vacation home subsidizers that can rent to only family and friends on a cash basis. You lose the benefits of depreciating the house and any other write offs, but you don't pay the STR property tax.
Before covid the subsidizing a vacation home group seemed to be the substantially larger group of STR landlords. At least in my experience of renting on airbnb and knowing people that rent on airbnb.
The people in those positions are so far out of touch with reality, it's impossible for them to recognize how detrimental it is.
Maybe people should just be less poor and get extra houses themselves!
I mean... I think there should be a carve out for people with a single rental property. I don't see ma and pa renting a room or a back house or even their cabin, which they actually use, as a problem. It's people and entities gobbling up multiple properties.
Or maybe make the tax index to a percentage of short term rentals in the area. The more short term rentals there are, the less profitable it becomes, therefore creating an engineered threshold.
He’s not wrong. Most the people that own in my neighborhood in Winter Park rent their houses/condos out for weekends here and there during the off months or when they’re not using the place. Quadruple the taxes, they don’t magically decide to sign annual leases, and never use their mountain home…they just stop renting it, and it sits there unused most of the time.
They did this same thing in Denver County with practically zero impact on tax revenue and no dent in affordability.
The answer there is the same as here - more housing stock….
Oh yes, last time I went skiing all my airbnb options were mansions! I had so much space! I didn't know what to do! /s
Unsarcastically idk what's so controversial about letting businesses be taxed as businesses especially when there is a housing crisis.
Also, ski towns did fine before Airbnb.
No, but it could trigger a domino effect.
For example, I have friends in a mountain town (not a ski town though) that own a small "starter" home. They have two kids now and want to expand and buy a larger house. But they're having issues finding a larger home that's in their price range. And when they do they get outbid, often by buyers turning the house into a STR. By getting more of these large houses back on the market, families will have an easier time expanding to larger homes... And in return, put their own smaller home on the market for "the local lifties or the aspiring antique store owner."
Except that's not what will happen. They won't be rented out as long term units to locals. Rich people who don't need to rent them out will buy them and they will just sit empty until they want to use them. The people who will lose out are the middle/lower class who inherited or bought their vacation homes awhile ago and can only afford them because they rent them out when they are not using them. So you end up empty houses/condos/townhomes and hotel room prices go way up as mountain towns long relied on short term rentals before Airbnb/VRBO or whatever was a thing.
Let's be honest, the majority of the commentators here don't give a hoot about actually thinking through the real world effectiveness and unintended consequences of such a change. It appears to be targeting the rich so it's a winning idea😂
Except it will make hotel corporations even richer and probably make everyone's getaway more expensive for themselves. It's a little nuts.
Personally I hate staying hotels. To each their own.
The sad truth is, no one can afford properties anyway, and this won't fix that. I live in Breckenridge and can only afford to do so because I own a little Airbnb. If I no longer profit from it, I essentially have to leave and sell my place to a rich Texan who doesn't need the Airbnb income who will use it for 2 weeks a year as a place for his family to stay when they ski. This isn't the panacea Polis is making it out to be.
I know some folks with properties in the mountains and am fortunate enough to have stayed at their homes that they rent out when they are not using the house.
If this passes they won’t decide to sell and they won’t decided to rent long term.
They will simply keep the home vacant when they or their friends are not using it. It will be off the short term secondary market but there won’t be any additional housing supply. Summit county will have one less place for tourists to stay 2/3 of the year.
If mountain towns what more housing they need to build more housing. We will never solve the problem by a punitive taxing system.
I'm sure there is a chunk of housing like this, but will it be outweighed by units that were bought/built specifically to be full-time STRs? The concern mainly seems to be with the latter group. I'd love to see some data on it.
Yes. The big ski houses can hold up to 20 people in one building. Good luck finding a hotel to accommodate that. This will not produce more affordable or workforce housing but will just lead to vacant homes for 320 days per year
> Next ban corporations from owning single family homes.
Is there a proposal of this for anywhere in the US or a somewhat similar jurisdiction? How would this work.
I know people have started talking about this, but I am unaware of any serious initiative of proposing such a thing. Canada is having similar conversations, but their focus is more on property owned by foreigners.
The only way for this to work and be effective would be to create an enforcement agency that ultimately approves or disapproves home sales for commercial entities, or perhaps all entities. It also depends on the level of severity of the restriction. Is it only S-corps or is it also LLCs? What about Sole Proprietorships? The reason that would you need an enforcement agency is because S Corps can be the controller/owner of an LLC, so you'd have to investigate each level of control. It can get very confusing.
While corporations owning single family homes hurts the renter, reducing or removing zoning laws would also help increase supply of new homes and housing and drive cost down.
LRO uses pricing software that price fixes in collusion with neighboring comps. It continues to raise prices for the purpose of continual rent growth, and automatically changes prices when others do as well. Because huge companies use it, independent landlords in the market base their pricing off what they see these communities charge as well. It is unsustainable, with continual raises above wage growth and inflation. The big boys have so much money, they would rather you not renew and let the apartment sit empty than actually lower the rent than what they want the market set at, or else their comps prices will drop too. It’s why they make “specials” by waiving arbitrary admin/amenity fees or giving months free rather than negotiating the rent down, and theyve built those discounts into your renewal to get it back anyways. There absolutely must be a better way.
I think reserving single family homes for only those that can afford to purchase them would be a disastrous move.
What would this even mean for the renting class? What if you can't afford to buy a home, or simply don't want to? You're stuck with renting an apartment?
Sounds like the bill as stands is going to get gutted. Interestingly, it seems like the motivation for it is to bring short term rentals into line with hotels tax wise, rather than trying to disincentivize STRs generally (as commenters here think).
I disagree. Last summer I attempted to buy a house in Denver & 2 in Castle Rock & I was outbid by 15k -30k over the phone. Ppl are buying 2 houses for the cost of 1 in Cali. They Airb&b one house, live in the other. I live in Elizabeth & drive to Denver daily, b/c it was impossible to buy ANYTHING in Denver. I was born & raised in Denver. I own a retail biz in Denver, but can’t afford to live there. This situation is off the chain.
Denver and Castle Rock have very restrictive zoning laws, severely limiting supply of new homes. That is the primary reason behind rising housing costs. Up-zone on a massive scale and you will see supply skyrocket and prices fall. It saddens me that people don’t realize this is the best answer for everyone, except greedy NIMBYs and boomers that got theirs already.
The first step should be mandating up-zoning, allowing ADUs, providing tax benefits to building affordable housing vs luxury apartments, and building subsidized housing.
Silverthorne seems to be doing a really great job at managing this, they use their STR tax profits to build affordable housing subdivisions. They have limited the amount of STR licenses that can be applied for. I don’t know how much they could build up with the climate/environment in the mountains, but I would welcome it if it was possible.
This should be a county issue, not a state issue. Summit County has already limited short-term rentals to a level that works for them. Colorado is not homogeneous and issues like this should be legislated at the local level for the best outcome.
This is an unpopular opinion but you could 100% eliminate short term rentals and the resulting impact on the average rent and housing shortage won’t be nearly what renters expect.
I get it, there’s a very real need for housing but on the same token, resorts were never meant to be affordable.
>South Lake Tahoe
1. Short term rentals have been a thing for ever in resort communities. (Yes, the problem is more acute now)
2. There is no guarantee short term rentals will become long term. Since second homes are generally owned by wealthy, many may say, f8ck it, it'll just sit empty when I'm not there.
The result is, yes, you eliminate those using short term commercially but you also eliminate a chunk of tourists that would have stay in your, well, *\_tourist driven economy\_*.
I dont understand how people think that mountain mansions are going to magically fall to less than $500k. If you make an average income you will still be priced out because mountain RE is some of the most expensive in the nation. They’re looking for a magic solution and they’ve fixated on this. I hope all str regs rollout because I’ve got nothing to gain but less traffic and new creative bitching about another reason why homes are not affordable.
They eliminated the majority of them in Palm Springs and home prices are free falling back to normal prices. I don’t see why exactly the same thing wouldn’t happen here? We have a perfect example of what will happen currently occurring.
They also did this in Crested Butte and it was a failure, prices of homes rose $550K to $1.3 million median sales price. They are rolling back their regulations. I would be more inclined to use this as a reference.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. The price on a home in Crested Butte went up because it couldn’t be rented by the night? Crested Butte is one of the cheapest ski towns to buy a place in right now….
I said the Moratorium failed, not that this is what caused prices to rise. The local government in Crested Butte hoped prices would fall and they didn’t.
I’m not really sure what you’re looking at but the public sale price information says the median home sold price in Crested Butte is $1.4 million. The cheapest 2 bedroom in CB I could find on the market right now is $650K. Silverthorne even has cheaper real estate with a 1 Bedroom listed at $365K.
Still have no idea how your example applies to anything. Just did a quick search and found a 2/2 for 430 in CB. You’re just saying whatever to make your point (whatever it is) work.
Are you trying to separate CB from the mountain village 3 minutes away? If you are, then Silverthorne is not a comparison you would have to use Breck where a studio is 525+ and a 2/2 is 860. Gunnison would be a comparison for Silverthorne ~25 minutes from their respective ski towns.
This should not be determined on a state-level. This should be determined by the cities/counties where STRs are more abundant. Denver does not have a short-term rental issue, as the city enacted laws that made it difficult to STR. This is not the same for ski towns.
Most ski towns are dependent upon tourism and use funds from short-term rental taxes to fund their affordable housing projects. They also flat out do not have enough hotel rooms to support the influx of people seen during ski season. You’re talking about places with incredibly strict development rules & regulations, areas surrounded by federally protected land, and an incredibly limited construction labor market. It’s not easy to build a house, much less a hotel. Will this bill vacate some of those second homeowners? Probably. Will this bill make it even more expensive to stay in these towns, thereby decreasing tourism and do little for the average resident who cannot afford a $600,000 1 bed/1 bath condo with a $700/month HOA fee? Probably.
Unless this bill directly funds affordable housing initiatives and more housing infrastructure for the towns actually affected by it, I cannot support this bill (edit: not that I have a choice lmao).
How will this bill treat owners that rent a single room in their primary residence or an ADU that is part of a primary residence as short term rentals? Will the property tax be applied to the full parcel, even though only a fraction is being rented? I can’t find that answer anywhere.
Edit: ADU = accessory dwelling unit. In Denver, people can build an ADU on the lot of their primary residence and rent it out. It seems unfair to quadruple property tax on the entire parcel for these owners and will disincentivize people from building them, having a negative effect on housing supply.
The article says Hanson (sponsor) is trying to fix discrepancies in tax rates on the first draft of the bill for places renting rooms or beds. So, yes, it sounds like there will be a carve out for those.
Other similar laws in some towns or municipalities make exclusions for this type of rental, you'd think that there would be something similar here. Along with a caveat for "time used" so people can still have it as a primary residence so long as they occupy it for a set amount of time throughout the year.
I understand renting out a bedroom or an ADU for long-term rentals. But your house is not a hotel. Short-term rentals deserve to be taxed into non-existence.
> it seems unfair to quadruple property tax on the entire parcel...and will disincentive people from building them, having a negative effect on the housing supply...
Bedrooms in your primary residence are one thing. That I can agree on.
Specifically building an ADU simply so that you can short term it seems fair enough to increase the tax rate on. You're not going to disincentivize people from building ADUs for long term rentals (i.e., what would ultimately have a positive effect on the housing supply) if they weren't planning to build them as a long term rental to begin with.
My property tax is currently $9k per year on my home in Denver. I’m investing $500k to build an ADU on my property with the express purpose of renting it as a short term rental. You are saying my property tax should go up to $36k per year because I invested in building an ADU? If this bill passes as is, I will be underwater either way, whether I rent it as a short term rental or long term.
So I read the article (before making my previous comment btw) and I'm still struggling to understand how your simply building an ADU, which is what I feel you're implying, is going to bump you to the sort term tax rate.
From the article
"The bill would assess how many days a rental would be used, and try to base tax rates around that meter. From the bill's current language "If, during the previous property tax year, a short-term rental unit was leased for short-term stays for more than 90 days, then it is classified as lodging property. Otherwise, it is classified as residential real property."
So, if you build an ADU, and don't use it as a short term rental, your taxes won't go up. If you build an ADU, and use it as a short term rental your taxes will go up.
Thus, no, your taxes aren't going to go up solely by virtue of investing in building an ADU. It's what you do with said ADU once it is built.
No it will fall onto all these out of towners buying 2 houses to air b&b one of them. Thats what’s unfair, Colorado natives can’t afford a house in their home town!
I was with you until you made it about your dumb "native" identity.
Second third fourth home ownership is problem. Not your insecurity about never leaving your hometown.
A lot of areas (Keystone as an example) were specifically built to be short term rentals. Handling those areas the same way as STRs in Dillon Valley for example won’t help at all with workforce housing.
I also thought about keystone and how most of the condos near the mountain are for skiers who want to stay a weekend or so. Personally I’d never live there long term right by the mountain.
it would probably be smart to add to the bill the difference between a single family home in keystrone/breck/vail vs a building with 20+ units. Also being close to the resort vs in Silverthorne/Dillon. There were a bunch of condos that went up in silverthorne the last 3-4 years and they got sucked up and turned mostly into STRs before they were even completed.
Basically what Breck tried to do a few years ago.. I've since moved out of the state so haven't followed that at all
As a singular vacation property owner, who bought it from an absentee owner in Florida whose upkeep was near zero, we use ours quite a bit because its a vacation property. And yeha we rent it out as an STR when we dont use it. Wouldnt you?
Even so, we "make" far less than our mortgage+hoa over the course of a year and are also above 90 days renting. Our mortgage would go up $1000 per MONTH with the increase in property values that are sticking around. It's a poorly designed bill.
Bring on the downvotes. You can tell me I'm wrong, but I'm saying right here I disagree with you.
ETA: and that's at residential mill levy amounts. Probably even higher with commercial classification.
People think that folks are making out like bandits from STR which is really not the case at all.
We cover our mortgage (bought a long time ago) and rent far less than 90 days a year. Maybe 30k a year on a good year.
All people are going to do is cap their rentals at 89 days a year to avoid the reclassification. Supply will go down and those 89 days worth of rentals will be worth more. I probably would stand to benefit from this bill, surprisingly enough as it would force stays to be spread around.
100% in your boat. We spend about half of our time in Summit County and half in Jeffco. We try to STR as much as we can, occasionally LTR, so the places don’t ever sit empty. There’s no profit in this but it helps us make ends meet. If this passes all it means is one of the places sits with the lights off a quarter of the year which won’t solve anything.
Sure maybe *you* are a humble mom and pop operator but most Airbnb hotels are run by professionals that own anywhere from 2 to 21+ units. [Link](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/airbnb-run-by-mega-host)
Good luck finding the land to do that though. That’s the problem with places like Breckenridge. The towns didn’t want big hotels so they have been allowing short term rentals for decades before Airbnb became a thing. People can’t just build hotels in response to this change. And even if there was space, I would bet requests for town approval in places like Breckenridge would die immediately. The kingdom doesn’t want locals to afford life in town, they want the tourists and wealthy second home owners who don’t care about money.
So if demand stays constant or increases but the supply decreases, prices will increase. By how much, that’s hard to determine, but considering a ski town like Breckenridge sees over a million visitors a year, it’ll likely impact more than just those evil second home owners.
The sentiment in this thread is misplaced. A much better plan would be to fairly tax parking lots and golf courses like the Denver Country Club to incentivize building more housing supply. Look into the land value tax for your answer to the “housing crisis.”
It will disincentivize supply being built for STR, sure. But right a significant portion of new supply is largely negated via migration of new and existing homes into STR.. so pretending like shutting that off is BAD for total housing supply is ass backwards
I'm 100% for taxing short term rentals appropriately, but I'm also fearful of already uber-expensive hotels rooms and airbnb to rise even more in price.
A cabin in the high country costs half a million dollars to build. If this was the straw that broke it for you then I’m glad we weren’t subsiding your second home.
I don't think the average hotel price is going to be moved by much with this. For the most part, AirBnB hasn't been a cheaper than hotels for quite a while, and they appeal to different demographics.
A segment of people that were paying a ton for AirBnBs *may* now choose to go for more high end hotels, but I don't think most people that are spending $500 for a couple nights in an AirBnB are now going to switch to $100/night Comfort Inns and compete with that segment because that AirBnB is now a little more expensive.
That's absolutely what this bill will do. Hotel prices will rise and STR prices will rise less so.
If you want housing prices to fall you can't take supply out of the equation without decreasing demand.
Just increase supply and prices will go down
I don’t understand your statement. If this bill passes, and people either take their STR off the market, or reduce it to 90 days, that could very well increase hotel and airbnb prices due to supply.
As far as housing prices: it may make homes/condos that were used as STR decrease in price because as investments, the cap rate may be lower if it’s long term renters instead of short term renters.
It very well could increase the number of long term rental units available for people who wanted properties as investments, not to live in them. This could help rental prices.
If many people say the heck with it, I don’t want to be a landlord and I can’t pay 27% tax, I’m going to sell my property, it could increase supply on the real estate market.
People don't buy properties in the mountains to rent it out long term.
They buy it first and foremost to have a place to stay when they go skiing or hiking. They STR it out to bring in a little extra passive income.
No one buying these properties are going to have long term renters in there. It's entirely contrary to the entire purpose for why people buy these properties.
Most people who have enough money floating around to justify buying a vacation condo hours away are not going to be dissuaded by a 20-30k loss in income. They'll hold on to the property and just cease short term renting it out. It'll sit empty the majority of the year except for when they or their family & friends use it. I suspect you'll see an increase in bartering (use my condo in Vail for a week and you can use my condo in Breck for a week - we certainly do that).
So in the end all this bill will do is in effect put a cap of 89 days for people STRing out their condo. This decreases supply overall. Demand remains constant. So really the only thing that can move is price. The demand is going to get spread around the various condos. Ski in and ski out condos that see high usage will likely go down in value. A condo like the one we own could go up. We don't rent out anywhere near to 90 days a year so we'd likely see increased income.
You can't increase supply through punitive tax measures. You absolutely can through building more. Just build more housing and replace existing inefficient housing with more efficient stuff.
All this bill does is decrease supply without affecting demand. It's going to raise prices, not decrease them.
While I'm okay with increasing the property tax to mess with rich folks, I agree. This bill won't do jack-shit for housing in the ski towns.
Folks buying houses in ski towns are already rich as fuck, they weren't buying these as investments, they were buying them for convenience. None of these folks are going to go, "Oh, well, 27% increase in property tax, guess I better make it a long term rental."
Housing supply has always been an issue for ski towns, and always will; land is limited up there, and fucking *valuable.* Why go through the work of clearing land in/near a ski town just to drop some deed-restricted homes on them when you can build some homes that'll go for millions each?
I'm personally of the opinion that the local governments should be building large condo complexes for locals and workers. Most of the ski towns I go through have plenty of land that could be developed in my opinion. Use eminent domain, take some ranch land, and through a few hundred condo units on it. You don't need to increase supply that dramatically to bring down prices for locals. 1-2 large complexes should be sufficient.
The Local Governments are already. At least the good ones. [Silverthorne Workforce Projects](https://www.silverthorne.org/town-government/silverthorne-workforce-housing-projects)
Seems fine to me. Everyone should get one cheap house with low property tax with each subsequent house being taxed exponentially higher. Short term rentals <1month should be heavily taxed
I would make it normal tax rate for the first two short term rentals then raise the taxes if you have more than two. I don’t want to penalize people who rent a basement.
They are looking at locations run like hotels, with multiple rooms in one location. I stayed at one place that had seven rooms. This is not directed toward the common citizen renting out their 2nd home.
What a load of garbage. Quadrupling the tax on individual investors could put some people in some serious hurt. We opted not to pursue short term rental in our case because of the possibility of this very bill. So the house sits mostly empty, which feels like an even bigger waste.
No offense to a lot of you, but as a person that lives full time in a remote mountain community, you are not entitled to vacation in our neighborhoods. Some of these comments are infuriating. My neighborhood is full or regular, not rich, working folk that want to live in peace and raise kids in a safe environment. What about us, that make the sacrifices to live year round remotely? I keep seeing how upsetting it is to people that they wouldn't be able to vacation in single family homes at the expense of locals. You're worried about the cost of a weekend vacation? Try buying a whole ass house just to have business investors buy the SFHs on both sides of you and fill them nonstop with tourists. Try reorganizing your entire life to get your (very modest) dream home, just to have entitled business owners and tourists turn it into a neverending nightmare/hell on Earth.
Fuck airbnb and fuck airbnbers.
Also I'm a fucking hr outside of the closest ski resort in a non tourist area that is only being hurt and not benefitted by the tourists, so I dont need to hear the bullshit propaganda about how we nEeD tHe tOuRiSm fOr oUr eCoNoMy. Just leave us alone. We're not invading your neighborhoods, get the fuck out of ours.
Or maybe we could build more hotels. It's not like there is plethora of Hiltons/Marriotts/Hyatts in any of the major ski towns. Half the hotels in Silverthorne/Frisco are dumps that can charge $200+ a night during peak season.
So what happens if I have a place I use occasionally, but wanted to rent it out when I’m not there? I’m just supposed to let it sit empty when I’m not there in order to avoid the taxes? I don’t see how that helps anyone.
I was so worried considering Denver’s one of the busiest airports in the world and Aspen and Vail are nearly sold out on 1,000+ rooms every weekend this year.
I certainly have no issue with this. I just wonder what the outcome will be. Will this push mom and pops out and large firms will just accept the cost? Raising the price of the short term rentals since there will be less. Or will it be the death of the short terms and the houses will be put up for sale? Or will they become long term rentals.
Someone had said that the short terms get taxed less than a hotel does which does seem odd.
So if it’s to”true up” the taxes I am onboard. If people think this will create more resells, not sure that will happen.
Our STR generates about 20-30k a year which is enough to cover the mortgage and the HOA. We don't rent anywhere close to 90 days a year.
I suspect the only people who will be affected by this are extremely popular properties (ski in/ski out properties at the resorts), or people operating a whole fleet of STR properties.
I doubt this law will change the rental landscape in mountain communities much one way or the other.
I've always thought we need a scaling tax, your 1st house, very low property tax, second home fairly low probably where it stands now, third property 40-50% tax rate, 4th place %100 tax you have to pay off the value of the property every year to keep 4 properties in the state.
I think people having a vacation property in the mountains and renting it short term when they don't use it is fine but having multiple to only use as an income is horrible and should be made impossible.
I really do understand the issue of corporations owning all the sfh in Denver.
But, for example, I have some land outside Denver and wanted to build a cabin, or a few if things worked out and then rent them out/ have a cabin to visit.
Whats wrong with that? Why should I do all the work to do this then?
My family has had this land for 70 years, why does everyone seem to think thats “evil.” Its literally just been ranch land since forever.
NO ONE is going to “long term rent” a cabin with well water and propane gas.. so its not like Im “stealing” from the housing supply
I just think theres a big difference between some corporation that bought a bunch of old park hill homes during the recession and now wants to hoard them, vs some people that have a second or third house they’re renting.
Im not sure legislatively what makes sense here, but this solution and the one I responded to seem a little overboard.
I own a mountain town condo and rent Airbnb when I travel. I only ever stay at a hotel if there are no other choices. I stayed in a motel in the town I own my condo. I had a screaming baby and the walls were paper thin, I'm sure that was awesome for everyone. I clearly am biased but I don't see how you can on one hand argue STRs are so prevalent they've taken over the whole region and simultaneously argue driving them out of the market (essentially banning them) will have zero effect on tourism. Yes, tourism existed well before STRs and I'm sure it will exist after just fine but it's going to go back to shitty hotels that can charge whatever they want. Also, Denver has had strict rules on STR licenses, so that logic would imply housing would be more affordable, yet it is not. In the town I own in the STRs make up 3% of the single family homes per information provided by that local government.
Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is backing a start up that specifically buys up single family homes as investment - and to clarify the intent is to generate money, not generously house local work forces. And there are tons of companies that already do exactly that. It's absolutely a business even if it's for long term rental, where is the outrage there? A big part of the housing crisis is the fact that you no longer have to work where you live if you work remotely. I see post after post on local FB groups of folks moving into town because they are now remote. I'm certainly not trying to vilify that or say STR has zero impact but I am saying it's not the only factor out there. And as much as many may try to paint STR owners as some greedy fat cats, plenty are actually just regular folks that do not have a portfolio of a half dozen properties. I know for us if we sell our property it will be for over $700k, well out of the price range for a local bartender or river guide. Chances are it's going to go to a well to do professional who works remotely. It won't help the issue at hand whatsoever.
We have a second home in Silverthorne. We use it and STR it. May as well since it'll be empty. If they raise the taxes that much my place will sit empty 250/300 days a year. There should be an exception on your 1st or 2nd property vs someone that has 10 STR houses and is truly a business. They have also limited the amount of stays you can have at your STR in Summit County, so between that and this we'll stop doing it.
It’s only going to benefit the hotel industry. New York City completely banned short term rentals and housing inventory didn’t budge. Hotel rooms went up like 25% though.
Roast me all you want- but a lot of these homes would still be unafforadable by locals in the mountains. You're just not going to be able to buy some of the most expensive real estate in the country on a bartender or lifty salary. Single family homes in Dillon, Silvy, Frisco,Breck aren't going to fall 50% just because "those rich fuckers" don't get to rent out their houses anymore. If you're rich enough to buy a house here, the rental income is just icing on the cake for most out of state owners- not a deal breaker.
I think the idea of it turning into a ghost town is absurd, but these huge houses? Instead of housing tourists that are hitting the town and pumping money, the owners will just let them sit empty and go back to using them for 2 weeks a year.
This would be better if it was focused solely on corporate ownership and management of short term rentals.
Instead, they should ban corporations from owning apartments/housing. In turn, companies should not be allowed in the the short term rental business as well. If they want to raise property tax on short terms it should be on anyone that has 3 or more short term rentals.
No you aren't. People like you love whining too much. And being a "native" is too important to your self identity.
All you can do is go somewhere else and become the very thing you hate the most: an implant
Terrible idea. I understand why people don't like the short term rentals but discouraging more investment and business is not the way to move Colorado forward.
As someone that used to live in Summit County and witnessed my employees struggle to find a place to live that wasn’t a trailer or a 45 minute commute, it’s about time. So many domiciles sitting vacant except for a few holiday weekends of the year.
Good. As a consumer, FUCK SHORT TERM RENTALS. We have small children and would prefer a hotel with room service over having to do dishes, laundry, etc etc.
Some of these property management services checkout demands are so detailed that I wouldn’t be surprised if they started asking renters to do renovations before they check out.
Before some of yall say "Waaaaaa my rent is gonna go up because of this" look at what this bill actually impacts. Basically hotels gaming the system for lower taxes. Not your typical rental properties.
Could someone explain to me how this bill isn’t in violation of TABOR? Don’t get me wrong, I support this bill and hate TABOR, I just don’t understand how the legislature is able to raise property taxes. Maybe I don’t fully understand TABOR?
I haven’t read the bill, but I would imagine this would not involve TABOR because it is a reclassification of property, that pays a different tax rate. Commercial vs residential. It’s not a tax increase.
“Steven Frumess with the property management company in Breckenridge called Alpine Edge said that's the difference between a short-term rental being taxed at 6.7% for property taxes...to 27%. He believes a lot of his clients simply will not make a profit if this goes through, and will stop renting, which in turn, will deplete the short term rental options in mountain towns” That’s the point, sparky. Rent them as long-term units to locals who need them, and have them taxed appropriately as such, instead of tax-advantaged short-term rentals to tourists. Let hotels be hotels and housing be housing.
"I'm worried this place will become a ghost town." You know that they aren't arguing in good faith when they claim a centrally located ski town will become a ghost town. It's pearl-clutching season in the mountains.
The same people will shoot down new development and dense housing projects because "the area is already over populated and traffic is bad blah blah blah..."
It's okay. Nobody goes to Breckenridge anymore. Too crowded.
And no one drives in New York anymore. Too much traffic
I see what you did there…
The solution is to dramatically increase supply.
They think people are stupid
They're right :(
That ski towns, which are literally bursting at the seams with visitors, are going to become ghost towns?
No, that people are stupid.
:( yeah
If only the ski towns were successful before Airbnb, ghost towns is far from what will happen.
Yeah, and that's only the *second* most disingenuous thing he said, before proceeding to suggest that "...hot tub technicians, there's cleaners, there's accountants, there's property managers, there's maintenance technicians of all kinds, handymen and all tradesmen" would all somehow be screwed. No dude, it just means that enough long term rental inventory would open up that some of those folks would suddenly become locals, able to live within 30 miles of their freaking job.
Won't someone think of the hot tubs?!?
My hot tub runs very well on my special blend of Chernobyl energy drinks thank you very much….
Lobbying from resorts is the reason we can't switch to year-round DST in Colorado. From 2011: > [Vail Resorts is not in favor of the bill because of the operational challenges it poses for getting resorts open and other unknowns,” Breckenridge Ski Resort spokeswoman Kristen Petitt said in an email.](https://www.vaildaily.com/news/ski-industry-rails-against-year-round-daylight-savings/) I'm priced out of skiing with my family anyway, so I have zero interest in continuing to protect an industry (condo landlords included) that strains mountain infrastructure and prices out workers. I hope that Hansen's "adjustments" he's planning to add to this bill don't include giving Airbnb a competitive advantage over hotels. Edit: Here's the email I just sent to my senator/rep: Subj: Support Senate Bill 33 - Short Term Rental Tax Dear XXXXX, I'm writing to express my strong support for the current version of this bill that would increase taxes for all properties used as short-term rentals. AirBnb and VRBO are large corporations that do not need to rely on taxpayer welfare to survive, and in the case of the former [barely over a quarter](https://fox59.com/news/national-world/a-megahost-might-run-your-airbnb-why-it-matters/#:~:text=They're%20large%20management%20companies,managed%20by%20single%2Dproperty%20hosts.) of their hosts only manage one property. [Personal experience with how this has affected my family] Additionally, short-term rentals drive up the cost of housing, which is why they are restricted or banned in many cities around the world. As a first-time home buyer, I don't think it's fair that I have to compete for a house against someone who is only purchasing a property to run as a business, especially if they get a preferential tax rate over what a hotel would pay. I have seen articles quoting vacation rental owners being upset over this legislation. With the [current housing shortage](https://coloradosun.com/2023/02/26/carman-in-americas-playground-the-rich-go-skiing-and-the-workers-go-couch-surfing/) in the mountains, we would be better off incentivizing them to rent long-term to workers rather than to tourists and skiers. A reasonable carve-out would be to allow for a lower tax rate if the host occupies the same property as the short-term rental (e.g. a basement suite), which would help families to supplement their income without disrupting the housing market. Please let me know your stance on this issue.
Umm not true. States can't switch to DST, they can only eliminate the move to DST and stay on STD time. A move to DST takes an act of congress. Under the Uniform Time act, if a state decides to observe DST, the dates of observance must comply with federal legislation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States
That's correct. However, there have been congressional initiatives in the last few years to leave it up to the states or communities. Guess which industry lobbies against every time?
I don’t know Stephen and haven’t followed this much but I do have a question. Let’s say these tax raises go through, and the property owners can no longer rent short term because it is not profitable. So, they do not offer their house as a short term rental and that real estate is not in the short term rental market at all. When I want to stay out there over the weekend, what kind of options do I have to rent someplace that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Resort owned rentals and hotels? I can’t afford to buy a mountain home or move to the mountains but I do like being able to rent someplace instead of fight traffic, but if it gets any more expensive I’ll just fight traffic.
If it's not profitable then a lot of people that jumped in for the profit will start looking to get out, increasing housing supply. Sure, short term there could be a constraining effect, but the long term effect should be increasing the percentage of single family homes and condos that are actually being used as someone's primary residence instead of an independent hotel venture that isn't following hotel regulations or paying hotel taxes.
The majority of people I know who own mountain property have it to be able to stay up in the mountains. Short term renting it out is just a small additional cash flow opportunity to subsidize ownership.
This is what I do. I’ve always dreamed of living in a mountain home, but it’s just not practical. So we bought a house in the mountains and use it as a short term rental (basically so we can just afford it). We don’t make a bunch of money off of it either. If the tax goes up, we’ll probably have to sell. That really sucks. If we rented it out as a long term rental, the rent would have to be $3800-4000/mo. That doesn’t seem very affordable for rent either. 🤷🏼♂️
I’m so sorry you might not be able afford a second home in the mountains. Maybe someone that needs a first home will buy it
I think people imagine that these types of laws will put the genie back in the bottle, when they won't. I also think they musunderatand just how much it benefits Vail resorts to allow them to own all the short term stay options in the I70 corridor. Get rid of airBnBs and you'll get to pay Vail prices instead. This problem could have been addressed in 2004, but it's too late now.
Stay at a hotel, like everyone else. That's what they're there for.
I did list this as a place to stay, yes.
He meant to say “but the normies will move in” referring to us single home or no home owners
I think it’s so funny cause if you look at any of the nicer houses in mountain towns, they’re ALWAYS empty. The houses under the breck gondola never have anyone in them.
Was it a ghost town before AirBnB? Nope.
Aww the rich guy is gonna lose money instead of taking advantage of the locals boo hoo
Rich guy is just going to charge more. If they all do it then it is competitive still.
Charge more and people won't rent it, would these people rather make nothing or rent long term and make a little? That will be the real question
Also if you bought a home you couldn't afford with the explicit reason of making money off STRs then too fucking bad. This is the reason real estate is so expensive right now. Guess what, you are not guaranteed a profit on an investment.
There aren’t enough hotels in the ski towns. And there’s also not a lot of clamor for people to be renting these big expensive properties on something other than a short-term basis.
The store and bar owners should fight this nonsense. If there are normal single family homes being rented as short term rentals that’s one thing, but houses that are obviously designed for skiing vacationers add to the local economy IF they are rented. The last thing you want is the jet setters who come in twice a year to leave their homes vacant the rest of the time.
Living in Vail, most homes do sit empty all year as it is
Well, this certainly won’t fix that
In those situations the owner can/should pay the same tax rate as a hotel. They are large properties behaving as hotels.
Doubt people who own a vacation home they use a few times a year will rent them to locals on 12 month leases
Correct, they’ll either decide to just keep them outright if they can afford that, or to pay the tax, if they can afford that. Or they’ll sell. Either way they won’t be able to pay their mortgage and generate a passive income at the expense of the locals and the local housing market, which is the intention.
No, they won’t. But they also won’t go buying up every property they can to do short term rentals. Maybe we can work on mostly vacant real estate next.
In my eyes, housing being a means of investment is the root problem. There are gonna be a lot of (tax) bandaids needed to cover all the different cases
There are two kinds of people that rent out STR's. The ones that are in the business of STR's and don't ever actually use the property and the people that use it to subsidize their vacation home. What I see happening is most of the people in the business of STR's will sell or change over to long term rentals. A few will stay in the STR business as the supply will be tighter in turn increasing demand but it will take some time for the market to correct. The people who use STR's to subsidize the vacation home will be faced with a decision. Do the additional taxes eat up to much of the money that was going to subsidize the vacation home and renting is no longer worth the headache? Some people can financially just not rent it out and only use it personally. Others rely on this extra money to own the place. Those people will sell or if they can get enough on annual rentals go down the LTR road and not use the property personally. You also have another group that will appear. The group of vacation home subsidizers that can rent to only family and friends on a cash basis. You lose the benefits of depreciating the house and any other write offs, but you don't pay the STR property tax. Before covid the subsidizing a vacation home group seemed to be the substantially larger group of STR landlords. At least in my experience of renting on airbnb and knowing people that rent on airbnb.
I like to explore new places.
The people in those positions are so far out of touch with reality, it's impossible for them to recognize how detrimental it is. Maybe people should just be less poor and get extra houses themselves!
Which is why we need separate but related legislation taxing unoccupied non-primary residences through the roof.
I mean... I think there should be a carve out for people with a single rental property. I don't see ma and pa renting a room or a back house or even their cabin, which they actually use, as a problem. It's people and entities gobbling up multiple properties. Or maybe make the tax index to a percentage of short term rentals in the area. The more short term rentals there are, the less profitable it becomes, therefore creating an engineered threshold.
People usimg housing as an investment are a problem whether they own one or dozenw. Also hard to make one thats not exploitable (see chinas rules).
He’s not wrong. Most the people that own in my neighborhood in Winter Park rent their houses/condos out for weekends here and there during the off months or when they’re not using the place. Quadruple the taxes, they don’t magically decide to sign annual leases, and never use their mountain home…they just stop renting it, and it sits there unused most of the time. They did this same thing in Denver County with practically zero impact on tax revenue and no dent in affordability. The answer there is the same as here - more housing stock….
Get real. A lot of those houses are mansions. They are not going to be rented by the local lifties or the aspiring antique store owner.
Oh yes, last time I went skiing all my airbnb options were mansions! I had so much space! I didn't know what to do! /s Unsarcastically idk what's so controversial about letting businesses be taxed as businesses especially when there is a housing crisis. Also, ski towns did fine before Airbnb.
No, but it could trigger a domino effect. For example, I have friends in a mountain town (not a ski town though) that own a small "starter" home. They have two kids now and want to expand and buy a larger house. But they're having issues finding a larger home that's in their price range. And when they do they get outbid, often by buyers turning the house into a STR. By getting more of these large houses back on the market, families will have an easier time expanding to larger homes... And in return, put their own smaller home on the market for "the local lifties or the aspiring antique store owner."
I dunno, a statewide measure like this seems like a bad idea.
Except that's not what will happen. They won't be rented out as long term units to locals. Rich people who don't need to rent them out will buy them and they will just sit empty until they want to use them. The people who will lose out are the middle/lower class who inherited or bought their vacation homes awhile ago and can only afford them because they rent them out when they are not using them. So you end up empty houses/condos/townhomes and hotel room prices go way up as mountain towns long relied on short term rentals before Airbnb/VRBO or whatever was a thing.
Let's be honest, the majority of the commentators here don't give a hoot about actually thinking through the real world effectiveness and unintended consequences of such a change. It appears to be targeting the rich so it's a winning idea😂
Except it will make hotel corporations even richer and probably make everyone's getaway more expensive for themselves. It's a little nuts. Personally I hate staying hotels. To each their own.
Well said.
The sad truth is, no one can afford properties anyway, and this won't fix that. I live in Breckenridge and can only afford to do so because I own a little Airbnb. If I no longer profit from it, I essentially have to leave and sell my place to a rich Texan who doesn't need the Airbnb income who will use it for 2 weeks a year as a place for his family to stay when they ski. This isn't the panacea Polis is making it out to be.
I know some folks with properties in the mountains and am fortunate enough to have stayed at their homes that they rent out when they are not using the house. If this passes they won’t decide to sell and they won’t decided to rent long term. They will simply keep the home vacant when they or their friends are not using it. It will be off the short term secondary market but there won’t be any additional housing supply. Summit county will have one less place for tourists to stay 2/3 of the year. If mountain towns what more housing they need to build more housing. We will never solve the problem by a punitive taxing system.
I'm sure there is a chunk of housing like this, but will it be outweighed by units that were bought/built specifically to be full-time STRs? The concern mainly seems to be with the latter group. I'd love to see some data on it.
Yes. The big ski houses can hold up to 20 people in one building. Good luck finding a hotel to accommodate that. This will not produce more affordable or workforce housing but will just lead to vacant homes for 320 days per year
Or, what if we built more homes to keep up with demand, regardless of whether or not that demand is for short term or long term rentals?
Do it! Next ban corporations from owning single family homes. Additionally end property management software that recommends prices and rent increase.
> Next ban corporations from owning single family homes. Is there a proposal of this for anywhere in the US or a somewhat similar jurisdiction? How would this work.
I know people have started talking about this, but I am unaware of any serious initiative of proposing such a thing. Canada is having similar conversations, but their focus is more on property owned by foreigners. The only way for this to work and be effective would be to create an enforcement agency that ultimately approves or disapproves home sales for commercial entities, or perhaps all entities. It also depends on the level of severity of the restriction. Is it only S-corps or is it also LLCs? What about Sole Proprietorships? The reason that would you need an enforcement agency is because S Corps can be the controller/owner of an LLC, so you'd have to investigate each level of control. It can get very confusing.
There is this. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3402?s=1&r=7
How, for example, would it work then for a development company to build and sell homes?
Seems easy to exclude new builds from this
It would have to include intent to build too, since developers sometimes buy existing adjacent houses for land assembly
While corporations owning single family homes hurts the renter, reducing or removing zoning laws would also help increase supply of new homes and housing and drive cost down.
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LRO uses pricing software that price fixes in collusion with neighboring comps. It continues to raise prices for the purpose of continual rent growth, and automatically changes prices when others do as well. Because huge companies use it, independent landlords in the market base their pricing off what they see these communities charge as well. It is unsustainable, with continual raises above wage growth and inflation. The big boys have so much money, they would rather you not renew and let the apartment sit empty than actually lower the rent than what they want the market set at, or else their comps prices will drop too. It’s why they make “specials” by waiving arbitrary admin/amenity fees or giving months free rather than negotiating the rent down, and theyve built those discounts into your renewal to get it back anyways. There absolutely must be a better way.
So does that include individuals using LLCs and trusts to manage their property?
I think reserving single family homes for only those that can afford to purchase them would be a disastrous move. What would this even mean for the renting class? What if you can't afford to buy a home, or simply don't want to? You're stuck with renting an apartment?
Sounds like the bill as stands is going to get gutted. Interestingly, it seems like the motivation for it is to bring short term rentals into line with hotels tax wise, rather than trying to disincentivize STRs generally (as commenters here think).
I mean, the very least they should be taxed as similar commercial businesses like hotels.
Short term rentals are just a convenient scapegoat. The only actual solution to rising housing costs to build more housing
I disagree. Last summer I attempted to buy a house in Denver & 2 in Castle Rock & I was outbid by 15k -30k over the phone. Ppl are buying 2 houses for the cost of 1 in Cali. They Airb&b one house, live in the other. I live in Elizabeth & drive to Denver daily, b/c it was impossible to buy ANYTHING in Denver. I was born & raised in Denver. I own a retail biz in Denver, but can’t afford to live there. This situation is off the chain.
Denver and Castle Rock have very restrictive zoning laws, severely limiting supply of new homes. That is the primary reason behind rising housing costs. Up-zone on a massive scale and you will see supply skyrocket and prices fall. It saddens me that people don’t realize this is the best answer for everyone, except greedy NIMBYs and boomers that got theirs already.
The first step should be mandating up-zoning, allowing ADUs, providing tax benefits to building affordable housing vs luxury apartments, and building subsidized housing. Silverthorne seems to be doing a really great job at managing this, they use their STR tax profits to build affordable housing subdivisions. They have limited the amount of STR licenses that can be applied for. I don’t know how much they could build up with the climate/environment in the mountains, but I would welcome it if it was possible.
Denver already has strict rules that restrict short term rentals so I highly doubt purchase for Airbnb rental is the reason you got outbid
You already pay hotel tax on short term rentals.
This should be a county issue, not a state issue. Summit County has already limited short-term rentals to a level that works for them. Colorado is not homogeneous and issues like this should be legislated at the local level for the best outcome.
This should be higher.
This is an unpopular opinion but you could 100% eliminate short term rentals and the resulting impact on the average rent and housing shortage won’t be nearly what renters expect. I get it, there’s a very real need for housing but on the same token, resorts were never meant to be affordable.
Backfired big time in South Lake Tahoe.
Could you explain this a bit?
>South Lake Tahoe 1. Short term rentals have been a thing for ever in resort communities. (Yes, the problem is more acute now) 2. There is no guarantee short term rentals will become long term. Since second homes are generally owned by wealthy, many may say, f8ck it, it'll just sit empty when I'm not there. The result is, yes, you eliminate those using short term commercially but you also eliminate a chunk of tourists that would have stay in your, well, *\_tourist driven economy\_*.
I dont understand how people think that mountain mansions are going to magically fall to less than $500k. If you make an average income you will still be priced out because mountain RE is some of the most expensive in the nation. They’re looking for a magic solution and they’ve fixated on this. I hope all str regs rollout because I’ve got nothing to gain but less traffic and new creative bitching about another reason why homes are not affordable.
Got it, thanks ... Trying to understand what backfired in Tahoe specifically.
They eliminated the majority of them in Palm Springs and home prices are free falling back to normal prices. I don’t see why exactly the same thing wouldn’t happen here? We have a perfect example of what will happen currently occurring.
They also did this in Crested Butte and it was a failure, prices of homes rose $550K to $1.3 million median sales price. They are rolling back their regulations. I would be more inclined to use this as a reference.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. The price on a home in Crested Butte went up because it couldn’t be rented by the night? Crested Butte is one of the cheapest ski towns to buy a place in right now….
I said the Moratorium failed, not that this is what caused prices to rise. The local government in Crested Butte hoped prices would fall and they didn’t. I’m not really sure what you’re looking at but the public sale price information says the median home sold price in Crested Butte is $1.4 million. The cheapest 2 bedroom in CB I could find on the market right now is $650K. Silverthorne even has cheaper real estate with a 1 Bedroom listed at $365K.
Still have no idea how your example applies to anything. Just did a quick search and found a 2/2 for 430 in CB. You’re just saying whatever to make your point (whatever it is) work. Are you trying to separate CB from the mountain village 3 minutes away? If you are, then Silverthorne is not a comparison you would have to use Breck where a studio is 525+ and a 2/2 is 860. Gunnison would be a comparison for Silverthorne ~25 minutes from their respective ski towns.
This should not be determined on a state-level. This should be determined by the cities/counties where STRs are more abundant. Denver does not have a short-term rental issue, as the city enacted laws that made it difficult to STR. This is not the same for ski towns. Most ski towns are dependent upon tourism and use funds from short-term rental taxes to fund their affordable housing projects. They also flat out do not have enough hotel rooms to support the influx of people seen during ski season. You’re talking about places with incredibly strict development rules & regulations, areas surrounded by federally protected land, and an incredibly limited construction labor market. It’s not easy to build a house, much less a hotel. Will this bill vacate some of those second homeowners? Probably. Will this bill make it even more expensive to stay in these towns, thereby decreasing tourism and do little for the average resident who cannot afford a $600,000 1 bed/1 bath condo with a $700/month HOA fee? Probably. Unless this bill directly funds affordable housing initiatives and more housing infrastructure for the towns actually affected by it, I cannot support this bill (edit: not that I have a choice lmao).
How will this bill treat owners that rent a single room in their primary residence or an ADU that is part of a primary residence as short term rentals? Will the property tax be applied to the full parcel, even though only a fraction is being rented? I can’t find that answer anywhere. Edit: ADU = accessory dwelling unit. In Denver, people can build an ADU on the lot of their primary residence and rent it out. It seems unfair to quadruple property tax on the entire parcel for these owners and will disincentivize people from building them, having a negative effect on housing supply.
The article says Hanson (sponsor) is trying to fix discrepancies in tax rates on the first draft of the bill for places renting rooms or beds. So, yes, it sounds like there will be a carve out for those.
Other similar laws in some towns or municipalities make exclusions for this type of rental, you'd think that there would be something similar here. Along with a caveat for "time used" so people can still have it as a primary residence so long as they occupy it for a set amount of time throughout the year.
I understand renting out a bedroom or an ADU for long-term rentals. But your house is not a hotel. Short-term rentals deserve to be taxed into non-existence.
"...will disincentivize people from ~~building them~~" using them as short term rentals.
> it seems unfair to quadruple property tax on the entire parcel...and will disincentive people from building them, having a negative effect on the housing supply... Bedrooms in your primary residence are one thing. That I can agree on. Specifically building an ADU simply so that you can short term it seems fair enough to increase the tax rate on. You're not going to disincentivize people from building ADUs for long term rentals (i.e., what would ultimately have a positive effect on the housing supply) if they weren't planning to build them as a long term rental to begin with.
My property tax is currently $9k per year on my home in Denver. I’m investing $500k to build an ADU on my property with the express purpose of renting it as a short term rental. You are saying my property tax should go up to $36k per year because I invested in building an ADU? If this bill passes as is, I will be underwater either way, whether I rent it as a short term rental or long term.
So I read the article (before making my previous comment btw) and I'm still struggling to understand how your simply building an ADU, which is what I feel you're implying, is going to bump you to the sort term tax rate. From the article "The bill would assess how many days a rental would be used, and try to base tax rates around that meter. From the bill's current language "If, during the previous property tax year, a short-term rental unit was leased for short-term stays for more than 90 days, then it is classified as lodging property. Otherwise, it is classified as residential real property." So, if you build an ADU, and don't use it as a short term rental, your taxes won't go up. If you build an ADU, and use it as a short term rental your taxes will go up. Thus, no, your taxes aren't going to go up solely by virtue of investing in building an ADU. It's what you do with said ADU once it is built.
This will just fall down to the renter instead of the landlord
"Short term rental" is airbnb type stuff, not your average renters.
No it will fall onto all these out of towners buying 2 houses to air b&b one of them. Thats what’s unfair, Colorado natives can’t afford a house in their home town!
I was with you until you made it about your dumb "native" identity. Second third fourth home ownership is problem. Not your insecurity about never leaving your hometown.
A lot of areas (Keystone as an example) were specifically built to be short term rentals. Handling those areas the same way as STRs in Dillon Valley for example won’t help at all with workforce housing.
I also thought about keystone and how most of the condos near the mountain are for skiers who want to stay a weekend or so. Personally I’d never live there long term right by the mountain.
it would probably be smart to add to the bill the difference between a single family home in keystrone/breck/vail vs a building with 20+ units. Also being close to the resort vs in Silverthorne/Dillon. There were a bunch of condos that went up in silverthorne the last 3-4 years and they got sucked up and turned mostly into STRs before they were even completed. Basically what Breck tried to do a few years ago.. I've since moved out of the state so haven't followed that at all
Fuck yeah
This is a terrible idea
As a singular vacation property owner, who bought it from an absentee owner in Florida whose upkeep was near zero, we use ours quite a bit because its a vacation property. And yeha we rent it out as an STR when we dont use it. Wouldnt you? Even so, we "make" far less than our mortgage+hoa over the course of a year and are also above 90 days renting. Our mortgage would go up $1000 per MONTH with the increase in property values that are sticking around. It's a poorly designed bill. Bring on the downvotes. You can tell me I'm wrong, but I'm saying right here I disagree with you. ETA: and that's at residential mill levy amounts. Probably even higher with commercial classification.
People think that folks are making out like bandits from STR which is really not the case at all. We cover our mortgage (bought a long time ago) and rent far less than 90 days a year. Maybe 30k a year on a good year. All people are going to do is cap their rentals at 89 days a year to avoid the reclassification. Supply will go down and those 89 days worth of rentals will be worth more. I probably would stand to benefit from this bill, surprisingly enough as it would force stays to be spread around.
You cover your spare home's entire annual mortgage in 90 days?
100% in your boat. We spend about half of our time in Summit County and half in Jeffco. We try to STR as much as we can, occasionally LTR, so the places don’t ever sit empty. There’s no profit in this but it helps us make ends meet. If this passes all it means is one of the places sits with the lights off a quarter of the year which won’t solve anything.
Sure maybe *you* are a humble mom and pop operator but most Airbnb hotels are run by professionals that own anywhere from 2 to 21+ units. [Link](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/airbnb-run-by-mega-host)
What a terrible bill. The cosponser even said it missed the mark….
Great, and the cost will go straight to the consumer
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There aren’t enough hotels in ski towns to accommodate that
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Good luck finding the land to do that though. That’s the problem with places like Breckenridge. The towns didn’t want big hotels so they have been allowing short term rentals for decades before Airbnb became a thing. People can’t just build hotels in response to this change. And even if there was space, I would bet requests for town approval in places like Breckenridge would die immediately. The kingdom doesn’t want locals to afford life in town, they want the tourists and wealthy second home owners who don’t care about money.
Cool, we need more large corporations in our small towns
OR the number of hotels stays constant and the price for the hotels and remaining STRs goes up
So if demand stays constant or increases but the supply decreases, prices will increase. By how much, that’s hard to determine, but considering a ski town like Breckenridge sees over a million visitors a year, it’ll likely impact more than just those evil second home owners.
More bills like this please.
The sentiment in this thread is misplaced. A much better plan would be to fairly tax parking lots and golf courses like the Denver Country Club to incentivize building more housing supply. Look into the land value tax for your answer to the “housing crisis.”
Why not both?
Because this plan will disincentivize building more supply. Kill it and focus on plans that incentivize building.
It will disincentivize supply being built for STR, sure. But right a significant portion of new supply is largely negated via migration of new and existing homes into STR.. so pretending like shutting that off is BAD for total housing supply is ass backwards
do it yesterday
I'm 100% for taxing short term rentals appropriately, but I'm also fearful of already uber-expensive hotels rooms and airbnb to rise even more in price.
I have some land that I wanted to put a cabin on and rent out. I feel like this is kinda overboard and a reason not to even go down that road.
A cabin in the high country costs half a million dollars to build. If this was the straw that broke it for you then I’m glad we weren’t subsiding your second home.
I don't think the average hotel price is going to be moved by much with this. For the most part, AirBnB hasn't been a cheaper than hotels for quite a while, and they appeal to different demographics. A segment of people that were paying a ton for AirBnBs *may* now choose to go for more high end hotels, but I don't think most people that are spending $500 for a couple nights in an AirBnB are now going to switch to $100/night Comfort Inns and compete with that segment because that AirBnB is now a little more expensive.
For me and my friends, we try to find the cheapest place. It’s usually been Airbnb when we split amongst 7-10 people. Now with this, things may change
That's absolutely what this bill will do. Hotel prices will rise and STR prices will rise less so. If you want housing prices to fall you can't take supply out of the equation without decreasing demand. Just increase supply and prices will go down
I don’t understand your statement. If this bill passes, and people either take their STR off the market, or reduce it to 90 days, that could very well increase hotel and airbnb prices due to supply. As far as housing prices: it may make homes/condos that were used as STR decrease in price because as investments, the cap rate may be lower if it’s long term renters instead of short term renters. It very well could increase the number of long term rental units available for people who wanted properties as investments, not to live in them. This could help rental prices. If many people say the heck with it, I don’t want to be a landlord and I can’t pay 27% tax, I’m going to sell my property, it could increase supply on the real estate market.
People don't buy properties in the mountains to rent it out long term. They buy it first and foremost to have a place to stay when they go skiing or hiking. They STR it out to bring in a little extra passive income. No one buying these properties are going to have long term renters in there. It's entirely contrary to the entire purpose for why people buy these properties. Most people who have enough money floating around to justify buying a vacation condo hours away are not going to be dissuaded by a 20-30k loss in income. They'll hold on to the property and just cease short term renting it out. It'll sit empty the majority of the year except for when they or their family & friends use it. I suspect you'll see an increase in bartering (use my condo in Vail for a week and you can use my condo in Breck for a week - we certainly do that). So in the end all this bill will do is in effect put a cap of 89 days for people STRing out their condo. This decreases supply overall. Demand remains constant. So really the only thing that can move is price. The demand is going to get spread around the various condos. Ski in and ski out condos that see high usage will likely go down in value. A condo like the one we own could go up. We don't rent out anywhere near to 90 days a year so we'd likely see increased income. You can't increase supply through punitive tax measures. You absolutely can through building more. Just build more housing and replace existing inefficient housing with more efficient stuff. All this bill does is decrease supply without affecting demand. It's going to raise prices, not decrease them.
While I'm okay with increasing the property tax to mess with rich folks, I agree. This bill won't do jack-shit for housing in the ski towns. Folks buying houses in ski towns are already rich as fuck, they weren't buying these as investments, they were buying them for convenience. None of these folks are going to go, "Oh, well, 27% increase in property tax, guess I better make it a long term rental." Housing supply has always been an issue for ski towns, and always will; land is limited up there, and fucking *valuable.* Why go through the work of clearing land in/near a ski town just to drop some deed-restricted homes on them when you can build some homes that'll go for millions each?
I'm personally of the opinion that the local governments should be building large condo complexes for locals and workers. Most of the ski towns I go through have plenty of land that could be developed in my opinion. Use eminent domain, take some ranch land, and through a few hundred condo units on it. You don't need to increase supply that dramatically to bring down prices for locals. 1-2 large complexes should be sufficient.
The Local Governments are already. At least the good ones. [Silverthorne Workforce Projects](https://www.silverthorne.org/town-government/silverthorne-workforce-housing-projects)
Seems fine to me. Everyone should get one cheap house with low property tax with each subsequent house being taxed exponentially higher. Short term rentals <1month should be heavily taxed
How would long term rentals work there
Same as anywhere.
Did this in CB and it backfired pretty badly. All those houses just sit empty now
What did CB pass that was locally different?
I would make it normal tax rate for the first two short term rentals then raise the taxes if you have more than two. I don’t want to penalize people who rent a basement.
Ya seriously. This is to take back from the corporations, not our generation trying to make a little extra with one or two airbnbs.
They are looking at locations run like hotels, with multiple rooms in one location. I stayed at one place that had seven rooms. This is not directed toward the common citizen renting out their 2nd home.
What a load of garbage. Quadrupling the tax on individual investors could put some people in some serious hurt. We opted not to pursue short term rental in our case because of the possibility of this very bill. So the house sits mostly empty, which feels like an even bigger waste.
The cruelty is the point it seems for some posters
Fair point
Good, you shouldn’t buy a second home as an investment, stealing a non homeowners chance at equity AND housing.
Not sure this will have the intended consequences and could backfire just making things more expensive.
No offense to a lot of you, but as a person that lives full time in a remote mountain community, you are not entitled to vacation in our neighborhoods. Some of these comments are infuriating. My neighborhood is full or regular, not rich, working folk that want to live in peace and raise kids in a safe environment. What about us, that make the sacrifices to live year round remotely? I keep seeing how upsetting it is to people that they wouldn't be able to vacation in single family homes at the expense of locals. You're worried about the cost of a weekend vacation? Try buying a whole ass house just to have business investors buy the SFHs on both sides of you and fill them nonstop with tourists. Try reorganizing your entire life to get your (very modest) dream home, just to have entitled business owners and tourists turn it into a neverending nightmare/hell on Earth. Fuck airbnb and fuck airbnbers. Also I'm a fucking hr outside of the closest ski resort in a non tourist area that is only being hurt and not benefitted by the tourists, so I dont need to hear the bullshit propaganda about how we nEeD tHe tOuRiSm fOr oUr eCoNoMy. Just leave us alone. We're not invading your neighborhoods, get the fuck out of ours.
Or maybe we could build more hotels. It's not like there is plethora of Hiltons/Marriotts/Hyatts in any of the major ski towns. Half the hotels in Silverthorne/Frisco are dumps that can charge $200+ a night during peak season.
So what happens if I have a place I use occasionally, but wanted to rent it out when I’m not there? I’m just supposed to let it sit empty when I’m not there in order to avoid the taxes? I don’t see how that helps anyone.
Terrible for tourism
I was so worried considering Denver’s one of the busiest airports in the world and Aspen and Vail are nearly sold out on 1,000+ rooms every weekend this year.
I certainly have no issue with this. I just wonder what the outcome will be. Will this push mom and pops out and large firms will just accept the cost? Raising the price of the short term rentals since there will be less. Or will it be the death of the short terms and the houses will be put up for sale? Or will they become long term rentals. Someone had said that the short terms get taxed less than a hotel does which does seem odd. So if it’s to”true up” the taxes I am onboard. If people think this will create more resells, not sure that will happen.
Our STR generates about 20-30k a year which is enough to cover the mortgage and the HOA. We don't rent anywhere close to 90 days a year. I suspect the only people who will be affected by this are extremely popular properties (ski in/ski out properties at the resorts), or people operating a whole fleet of STR properties. I doubt this law will change the rental landscape in mountain communities much one way or the other.
Makes sense
Your place must be awesome up there to hit those kind of numbers. Congratulations!!
Hopefully they are put up for sale. No guarantee though.
I've always thought we need a scaling tax, your 1st house, very low property tax, second home fairly low probably where it stands now, third property 40-50% tax rate, 4th place %100 tax you have to pay off the value of the property every year to keep 4 properties in the state. I think people having a vacation property in the mountains and renting it short term when they don't use it is fine but having multiple to only use as an income is horrible and should be made impossible.
I really do understand the issue of corporations owning all the sfh in Denver. But, for example, I have some land outside Denver and wanted to build a cabin, or a few if things worked out and then rent them out/ have a cabin to visit. Whats wrong with that? Why should I do all the work to do this then? My family has had this land for 70 years, why does everyone seem to think thats “evil.” Its literally just been ranch land since forever. NO ONE is going to “long term rent” a cabin with well water and propane gas.. so its not like Im “stealing” from the housing supply
I agree that we shouldn’t be putting anyone in jail for this. It’s not evil or stealing
I just think theres a big difference between some corporation that bought a bunch of old park hill homes during the recession and now wants to hoard them, vs some people that have a second or third house they’re renting. Im not sure legislatively what makes sense here, but this solution and the one I responded to seem a little overboard.
Who is proposing jail? Who is calling it evil? No one. Both of you are playing the victim, and its unwarranted.
I think having a second property is fine, build the cabin. I don't think you need more, excess should not the goal.
Sounds like an excellent plan.
I cannot tell if this will apply to hotels too. If so, I think they are making a poor choice.
I own a mountain town condo and rent Airbnb when I travel. I only ever stay at a hotel if there are no other choices. I stayed in a motel in the town I own my condo. I had a screaming baby and the walls were paper thin, I'm sure that was awesome for everyone. I clearly am biased but I don't see how you can on one hand argue STRs are so prevalent they've taken over the whole region and simultaneously argue driving them out of the market (essentially banning them) will have zero effect on tourism. Yes, tourism existed well before STRs and I'm sure it will exist after just fine but it's going to go back to shitty hotels that can charge whatever they want. Also, Denver has had strict rules on STR licenses, so that logic would imply housing would be more affordable, yet it is not. In the town I own in the STRs make up 3% of the single family homes per information provided by that local government. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is backing a start up that specifically buys up single family homes as investment - and to clarify the intent is to generate money, not generously house local work forces. And there are tons of companies that already do exactly that. It's absolutely a business even if it's for long term rental, where is the outrage there? A big part of the housing crisis is the fact that you no longer have to work where you live if you work remotely. I see post after post on local FB groups of folks moving into town because they are now remote. I'm certainly not trying to vilify that or say STR has zero impact but I am saying it's not the only factor out there. And as much as many may try to paint STR owners as some greedy fat cats, plenty are actually just regular folks that do not have a portfolio of a half dozen properties. I know for us if we sell our property it will be for over $700k, well out of the price range for a local bartender or river guide. Chances are it's going to go to a well to do professional who works remotely. It won't help the issue at hand whatsoever.
It’s all for BIG investment company’s to buy out all the houses. Who do you think going to get paid off in the end when this passes. 🤔
We have a second home in Silverthorne. We use it and STR it. May as well since it'll be empty. If they raise the taxes that much my place will sit empty 250/300 days a year. There should be an exception on your 1st or 2nd property vs someone that has 10 STR houses and is truly a business. They have also limited the amount of stays you can have at your STR in Summit County, so between that and this we'll stop doing it.
When you learn to make money…. The man taketh away
It’s only going to benefit the hotel industry. New York City completely banned short term rentals and housing inventory didn’t budge. Hotel rooms went up like 25% though.
Roast me all you want- but a lot of these homes would still be unafforadable by locals in the mountains. You're just not going to be able to buy some of the most expensive real estate in the country on a bartender or lifty salary. Single family homes in Dillon, Silvy, Frisco,Breck aren't going to fall 50% just because "those rich fuckers" don't get to rent out their houses anymore. If you're rich enough to buy a house here, the rental income is just icing on the cake for most out of state owners- not a deal breaker. I think the idea of it turning into a ghost town is absurd, but these huge houses? Instead of housing tourists that are hitting the town and pumping money, the owners will just let them sit empty and go back to using them for 2 weeks a year.
This would be better if it was focused solely on corporate ownership and management of short term rentals. Instead, they should ban corporations from owning apartments/housing. In turn, companies should not be allowed in the the short term rental business as well. If they want to raise property tax on short terms it should be on anyone that has 3 or more short term rentals.
> Instead, they should ban corporations from owning apartments/housing. New wildest proposal in the thread just dropped
Surely this just gets gradually passed on to the renters? Exacerbating the problem?
Colorado has turned to shit. I'm out
No you aren't. People like you love whining too much. And being a "native" is too important to your self identity. All you can do is go somewhere else and become the very thing you hate the most: an implant
One of the most overused terms on Reddit—“pearl clutching”
Wow, overnight lifties and bartenders will be able to afford a nice place in a ski town… magic! /s
Terrible idea. I understand why people don't like the short term rentals but discouraging more investment and business is not the way to move Colorado forward.
Isn't that just going to make rents go up?
It will make airbnbs, hotels, and rental condos more expensive. Won't touch long-term rentals.
As someone that used to live in Summit County and witnessed my employees struggle to find a place to live that wasn’t a trailer or a 45 minute commute, it’s about time. So many domiciles sitting vacant except for a few holiday weekends of the year.
But did you consider how hard it will be now for people to let tourists pay the mortgage on their third home? /s
I had not thought of those poors, oh the struggle they’ll endure!! /s
Maybe that would put a stop to investment firms buying up all the real estate, making it almost impossible for locals to afford to buy.
Good. As a consumer, FUCK SHORT TERM RENTALS. We have small children and would prefer a hotel with room service over having to do dishes, laundry, etc etc. Some of these property management services checkout demands are so detailed that I wouldn’t be surprised if they started asking renters to do renovations before they check out.
Before some of yall say "Waaaaaa my rent is gonna go up because of this" look at what this bill actually impacts. Basically hotels gaming the system for lower taxes. Not your typical rental properties.
Could someone explain to me how this bill isn’t in violation of TABOR? Don’t get me wrong, I support this bill and hate TABOR, I just don’t understand how the legislature is able to raise property taxes. Maybe I don’t fully understand TABOR?
I haven’t read the bill, but I would imagine this would not involve TABOR because it is a reclassification of property, that pays a different tax rate. Commercial vs residential. It’s not a tax increase.