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Probably best to pack upand

Liberals ... BLM signs ... virtue signaling

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Seizure won’t fly as an official program, but it could work as a grassroots movement. It’s pretty hard to evict a squatter. Even harder to evict 10,000 squatters spread around the state.

In 1970, due to widespread inflation, Nixon issued an executive order that stopped all price and wage increases. It made them illegal. In 2022-2023, we have serious inflation, yet supposedly much more progressive administration is so staunchly neoliberal that anything other than tinkering around the margins of the market is heresy.

The government is the only institution in public life that has any democratic accountability, but the neoliberal hegemony is so overwhelming, that in just 50 years, no one can imagine its role being anything other than minor nudges to the market, hoping it'll tweak the incentive structure a bit.

We need to start thinking bigger than just making our already insane tax structure even more insane in the hopes that it'll convince markets to have more moral outcomes. I don't know what the answer is, but the conversations being had right now are so narrow that we're never going to find it.

Julie Marks has done a great job of putting the "just little people renting out a room" narrative to fight regulations and investigation into the serious impact STRs have had over the past decade in taking LTR stock out of circulation. It's a shame there's no organization to refute her propaganda directly. The Vermont Lodging Association sometimes does, because they want STRs to follow the same rules/inspections/laws/guidelines that inns and real B&Bs do. But unfortunately, their viewpoint quickly gets tarred as "they just don't want the competition." (Full disclosure: I own a small B&B, but also list on AirBnB).

The STR survey Lamoille County did show that 60% of residents said they'd had a negative experience with an STR in their community. That was eye-opening.

It's a difficult subject. In our community, yes, most of the formerly-LTRs-converted-to-STRs service the local ski tourism economy. But unfortunately, if you want to work for that economy, there's no place here to live - you have to commute an hour or more to get here.

For those who keep trying to disconnect the cause-and-effect, just plot two charts: The decline in long-term rental stock 2013-2023, and the exponential growth of short-term rentals from 2013-23.

I now only use Airbnb for long term stays where we plan to cook. If it's a 1-3 night stay in a new city I usually look for hotels with free breakfast.

I truly don’t think that guy has ever been up there.

That’s a very fair proposal.

I don’t agree that second home ownership is immoral, as someone who regularly encounters homeless folks traveling for work I sincerely doubt that most of them would be buying homes even if they were cheap. Mental health care is the major need there.

But yeah, having them pay more to support the area is certainly fair. The counterargument is that they don’t consume local services like schools, EMS, fire, etc. but meh, I still think it makes sense to pay a bit more. Maybe to subsidize small businesses in the area or something, I don’t know what the right answer is.

Nice/very polite republicans

• The ownership stat you point to (7% of owners own 50% of STRs) is likely inaccurate. Transparent probably gets its data from rental listing websites, and not property records (that would be highly difficult, if not impossible with entities like LLCs in play). There are many many companies who operate STRs for owners and therefore list many many properties that they don't own. This is definitely worth looking at more deeply, but I don't think this number is accurate enough to be relevant, although the concept is.
• Many other previously accommodations are now gone. It used to be common for one or more small inn or hotel to operate in every single small town, as well as multiple Bed & Breakfasts, guest houses, etc. Take Burlington for example - think about how many motels there are/were in town and down Shelburne Rd. that are no longer accepting short term guests. Sounds crazy at first, but look at every 20-50 room motel and then consider that the visiting population is growing, and each one of those rooms now becomes an apartment that someone has chosen to rent short term.
• Most Second Homes and STRs were never part of the available housing pool. A [multi] million dollar lake or ski house, or rural retreat/farmhouse/lodge is not suitable for long term rental in a meaningful way. There's no way to take an empty 8 bed, 10 bath luxury home and repurpose it as an affordable rental. Keep in mind that much like our economy, our housing stock is not zero-sum. Someone owning a large second home does not mean that another person doesn't get to have a home - it doesn't take away from anyone else. That house wouldn't have existed without the will and resource of whoever owns it, and they haven't repurposed it from a local person looking for long term housing.* The larger socioeconomic implication probably points at that second home owner taking something from someone to build that house, but more like taking money from local people wherever they made that money...

If that's true, why does the VSC system get $10 million more from the state than UVM?

Vermont is theoretically perfect. A Vermont with a healthy housing market would be perfect. Current VT is not a good place to move to, financially, for most people.

The problem is there is no mental health system whatsoever at the state level and no ability to take people who are a danger to themselves or others off the street. If everything is strictly voluntary we end up with nothing.

Air B and B has existed for 15 years. The market will adapt.

Is anyone surprised? He's an old, rich, white guy. Everyone knows the rules are different for them.

Lol. Down vote because America doesn't have a separate justice system for rich white people. There are a lot of copium addicts on this sub.

We don’t have to seize them. We just need to tax them appropriately so that short term and long term rental income becomes more equal.

If their actual home is in Vermont I am happy that they are here!

They also don’t volunteer for the fire department, shop in our stores, or care about their neighbors.

Nice analysis OP.

This is a profoundly complicated issue, and not an easy one to solve. Nor, apparently an easy one to report on.

Regarding the “build our way out of it” idea, your point about converting second homes to primary residences makes sense. That said, the housing stock is generally so old/undermaintained, that I think there’s decades worth of development to get us to where I’d like us to be. I’m in favor of a lot of the work to make it easier to build in dense areas and village centers.

You employ 4 people at most likely unlivable wages to support your business model that's deleterious to communities. That's your justification? lol

Airbnbs do fuck all for tourism in all but the most niche markets. Pretty sure tourism existed before airbnb

>That means, theoretically, we could have 25% more housing inventory tomorrow if we just take the empty vacation homes and Airbnbs.

Take?

Don’t yuck my yum

Yeah definitely calling bullshit.

Why the hell they using January data when that is offseason vs during the summer months?

There is an individual who owns 10 airbnb’s on Mallets Bay alone. The type of airbnb owner that uses their income for “automotive costs” owns a new Audi, $70k+ truck, new corvette or new Porsche 911, and more.

Don’t want to hear that bullshit anymore about “if I can’t str on airbnb I won’t be able to survive!!!” Yeah fucking right.