As Maui goes forward with aggressive measures to phase out 50% of its short-term rentals, Oahu signals its readiness to follow. A big shift in Hawaii’s vacation rental approach is upon us.
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211 thoughts on “Clampdown on Hawaii Vacation Rentals Escalates: First Maui, Next Oahu”
It’s not one-size fits all, and the lack of any nuance in the law is problematic. On Oahu, the Hotel cartel already has such a death-grip on stays I’m not sure how much more they can squeeze. Small homes mean family must stay on the couch or not visit at all. If you recall, the first argument against STRs was that they were fraying of the very fabric of neighborhoods, that conveniently changed to a housing crisis argument after Lahaina. I understand not turning each Kilauea into a Poipu, but the dense urban condition of much of Oahu is not the same beast, and the law just wreaks of the Hotelier lobby greed. If we wanted effectual change, give us real numbers of STRs viable as housing, areas of risk and impact, etc. No such luck.
I always stay at a Timeshare when I visit Hawaii. I would not enjoy staying some place knowing it is taking housing away from a family. Just saw a family with a new born living on the beach trying to find a home on Kauai.
If we didn’t have family living in Hawaii we couldn’t afford to come. Hotels are outrageously expensive. Guess you only want wealthy folks to visit which is sad. The Islands are lovely.
I have family near North Shore on Oahu. Outside of Turtle Bay Hotel, there are few sizable hotels, therefore I see trips to visit family there may now be limited if I cannot find local short term rentals. I am curious, will the many condo owners at Turtle Bay have the 180 day minimum put on those condos too? That entire resort was designed for short term visitors. So I assume that condo owners will continue to do short term rentals there. Or am I mistaken?
The real issue in short term long term is the actual building or life safety codes that require heightened safety in short term rentals like: sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems, fire rated separating walls, safe means of egress, etc. These are all things licensed hotels, motels, inn, B&B, and condos must have. When any house can be used as a STR, these safety enhancements are often missing, putting short term guests at greater risk. This is true all of the US, not just in HI. So most purpose built condos would likely have the right safety equipment, but the codes were not written with houses and apartment buildings in mind for transient occupancy.
I’ll add an opinion as someone that could considered to be part of the problem (the tourist, in my case almost yearly). There’s no easy solution to a much-needed correction to protect local Hawaiians from the lack of available housing. Definitely feel for the locals. But if you cut out a big piece of the tourism pie, there won’t be jobs to support the housing. A counter-argument could be had that it’s the perfect time to do this as tourism hasn’t seemed to fully rebound since the tragic fires that took Lahaina. I really hope for the sake of the islands and the island peoples a sustainable solution is reached. Mahalo and much love.
While we are discussing our STR situation in Hawaii, I urge all the STR owners to become aware of the recently passed (Oct 2023) California Assembly Bill No. 537, which will be effective July 1, 2024.
Because most of our domestic visitors come from California, this is something that will affect all accommodations in Hawaii.
Renee, you believe that the competition from STR contributed to upscale hotels increasing their rates? Do you really believe that the hotel industry will lower their rates if STR is eliminated? Supply and demand does not work that way. Limiting (or eliminating) STR for homes in residential areas makes perfect sense to me, but not 1 and 2 bedroom condos especially in resort communities (like Poipu and Princeville in Kauai). They are much more cost effective for tourists than staying in hotels and contribute to our local economy. Hopefully each county will exercise their new authority in a way that is actually helpful.
Yes, I agree with you. I do have an experience in this area. My apologies if I didn’t make it clear. This is much more complicated, but we have to start somewhere. I do support STR in resort areas, because competition is good overall and various forms of accommodations have always co-existed. It’s important to keep this balance. The upscale hotels have to lower their rates, otherwise, their occupancy will linger in 40-50% and there will be layoffs. None of us wants Maui to become like some other parts of the world, where it is too dangerous for guests to venture outside of the resort areas. We would all lose in a long run if people did not to come here at all.
Getting rid of STR’s is not the answer for the shortcomings of the government. If they get rid of some of the STR’s on that list, much of them are 1 or 2 bd condos. Really think a family can live there comfortably? Maybe if you have 1 child max. Plus do the math on the cost & it will be $3k minimum. We own an STR condo for the last 15 years, as we have family on the island. We have a local cleaner that we use and compensate her well. We utilize contractors at the complex, who are locals. We purchase things for the place from local vendors. We spend about 25% of the time, just staying there and visiting family. In my opinion, the Maui government is pointing the finger of STR owners due to the shortcomings of planning out housing for locals
It’s time to refuce short term rentals. Our local housing market is depleted and much due to investors buying places and turning them to short-term rentals. There are plenty of hotels for the tourists. It’s time the local interest is addressed. Previous administration only cared about tourism. I’m tired of seeing local residents move from the islands due to the housing market over priced and therefore lack of affordable housing.
I doubt much will change. A neighbor in Kahuku just sold their home for $1.67 mil to a family from CA that is planning on leaving it empty most of the year. They bought it in cash. No local, especially one in Kahuku, can compete. They never will. Eliminating homes from the market that can rent to tourists at 30 day stays won’t make a dent in the housing crisis. You’ll just have homes sit empty and no contribution to the economy from tourists who will take their money elsewhere. Hawaii will learn the hard way.
Hawaii will be just fine without STR. Affordable condo resorts existed long before Airbnb entered the market in 2008. Because of Airbnb, things became complicated when Expedia purchased VRBO and HomeAway platforms in 2015. Airbnb got out of control, and instead of being a supplemental form of accommodation, it started to be more expensive than average hotels and contributed to the upscale resorts even higher rates… domino effect. Yes, Maui will lose tax revenue, but please remember that hotels provide employment to many residents with benefits: medical, sick leave, vacation, profit sharing, and contribute to the community at large. Don’t forget the commercial real estate investments. It’s time to limit STR (not eliminate). Aloha!
Nicely stated, Renee.
The revenue the counties will loose from taxes are a no Brainerd. Wish they would actually think and plan before they act.
As a STR owner & plan on retiring in Maui we contribute a lot when we are on Island 3-4x yr we try to do all business with small locally owned shops and restaurants to keep our $ on island. It amazes me that the supporters of this bill are against us “greedy”STRs when a lot of the owners support all local business but they have no problem with the Corporate Hotels that take their money off shore. There are a couple of vacant Anchor store that left in Kahalui maybe turn into apt to help a little
The real activists against overtourism on the Maui County council don’t like the proliferation of hotels either. I’ve attended many county council meetings, and it’s clear to me that they wish they could curtail all of it, but they are impossibly beholden to the hotels, for whatever political reasons exist at their level, the mayoral level, and the state level. The hotels rule the roost, for sure, and are given many privileges and exceptions to the normal rules and legislation attempts.
For instance, Maui formed a working group in 2021 in which caps were proposed on all accommodations in all zonings, including hotels.
It passed for all areas and all zonings, but hotels were removed at the last minute as the only exception.
Glad we sold our two vacation units before Covid!!
Our 2 units were both 1 bedrooms and small, no way a family could live in it. We could barely stand it for 6 months every year. You only got one parking spot too!
I agree something needs to be done but I’m not sure this is the answer.
We enjoyed our 7 years of ownership but I definitely felt there would be big changes coming and now with Covid and the fire things will definitely change.
The immediate question is how income from the rental properties that are no longer on the market will impact the fiscal budget for 2025. How much has been budgeted for increase of unemployment that are directly related to short term rentals?
These houses and condos will now be empty and or sold to to people who buy them for vacational use. I would expect see some of these bought in a partnership of 4 to 6 people/families who will use them each for few months year.
I don’t see many leased to the locals because the long term lease agreements $3 to 5K per month.
I posted this above:
…..A neighbor in Kahuku just sold their home for $1.67 mil to a family from CA that is planning on leaving it empty most of the year. They bought it in cash. No local, especially one in Kahuku, can compete. They never will. Eliminating homes from the market that can rent to tourists at 30 day stays won’t make a dent in the housing crisis. You’ll just have homes sit empty and no contribution to the economy from tourists who will take their money elsewhere. Hawaii will learn the hard way.
Maui and nonresident Maui property owners should be more than a little concerned about the damages that will be assessed when (not if, see my previous post) Bissen loses in Fedl District Court.
Beat of Hawaii reported the ADR for a Maui rental as of March 2024 was $337 per night. That puts the loss of ADR income alone from 7,000 STRs Bissen proposes to close at $2,359,000 per day, or $70,770,000 per month.
The humane course of action would be for the district court judge who hears the matter to end it in pretrial hearings, as Derrick Watson did in the HI STR Alliance case. Otherwise, Maui taxpayers will be quickly on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, real money that they could otherwise buy beer with.
I guess we will see what happens but I know that there are lawsuits in the making. Eliminating short-term rentals does absolutely nothing to increase housing affordability. The government needs to stop. It’s over regulation and burdensome process for building homes.
I lived in Honolulu for iver 12 years where we had 8 apartment studio units per floor and one by one they All became an Airbnb except me! So 7 long term rentals for decades just Gone …. & now almost all 12 floors followed suit…off the market and only available to cheap vacationers. Airbnb has definitely ruined more residential living than people realize!
Don’t get me started on the lack of rules they follow & noise they make while on vacation!
Prediction. If the Supreme Court doesn’t toss it for being unconstitutional, it will be repealed in a few years when the full weight of the economic impact is felt.
Prediction: The Supreme Court won’t even bother to take it up because they don’t like to interfere in State matters if they don’t have to. My common sense says that they won’t want to appear to side with a bunch of real estate investors and not on the side of state residents who are being forced from their homeland year after year because speculators have driven the prices to an unreachably high amount. There are now more Kānaka Maoli living away from Hawai’i than are actually living here. That is a crime.
It will be taken up by court, federal or otherwise. When private property rights/takings clauses are being threatened, it will be addressed. To think otherwise is naive.
Perhaps, but honestly ask yourself, and use your common sense…are their property rights being violated? The government is simply restricting what they can do with said property. That has been the case with all property since time immemorial. In addition, if this matter did go to court, there is no way that it will side with investors over the disenfranchised Kānaka Maoli. Wake up and look around. The winds of change are here and it’s not going back to the status quo, just to satisfy real estate speculators. Always remember, politics is downstream from culture. That’s why this happening now, instead of just being talked about anymore. The STR owners in the wrong zone will lose. But alas, we shall see. Time is the great equalizer.
They want to bring house prices down, as well as rents. If the mainland STR owners sell ahead of the new rules, and prices do fall 10 percent or more, it will be Hawaii residents underwater on their mortgage loans. Property taxes will still be very high as it will take years before the City adjusts the values downward as lower comps come in. The mainland owners walk away with their equity intact, while local homeowners of all types get screwed by Green and the mayors.
That’s been my view as well. I have no dog in the Hawaii STR hunt. I’m just an interested observer. No matter how this plays out, the local resident is going to get the bad pineapple out of the deal.
The rent and housing prices won’t fall though, except for a temporary dip. This has been proven in other communities. Take our frequent cut-and-paster Bill’s advice and look at the Palm Springs and Lake Tahoe data, or any other locale that has passed a ban at least 3-5 years ago. Prices and rents are sky high, just as high as if there hadn’t been a ban.
We have been traveling to Hawaii for 40 years. Our daughter taught middle school in Oahu for 6 years and was married there last year with 100 people attending. Unfortunately I felt we were being extremely price gouged! Very discouraging. The short term rental restrictions make it virtually impossible to visit. We know how important tourism dollars are to the islands these new policies are very short sighted. Lots of beautiful places in the world to visit and when you don’t feel welcome and that you are being price gouged you look elsewhere.
Maui has an acute, immediate need for housing for displaced Lahaina residents. This comes on top of the pre-existing chronic need for more affordable housing. Lahaina housing will eventually be rebuilt, but I’d guestimate this will take 2 to 5 years. Maui Could limit the restrictions on STRs to sunset after 2 to 5 years, making that housing available for residents until more suitable family housing can be replaced. I mean, most vacation condos are not suitable for families anyway, people won’t want to raise kids in a 1 bedroom apartment with minimal storage.
If this unconstitutional taking of property rights were to go thru the courts and upheld, the result would be catastrophic for the economy and thousands would flee the island. Property values would plummet and taxes will rise. These politicians just don’t get it!
If there are no houses to rent in Hawaii I will not be going there. :(.
I do not enjoy staying in a hotel room.
Doug B: STRs are required by law to pay the same GEC and TAT taxes as hotels. (18% total). Maui county has been quit aggressively enforcing this. Owners must have a state tax license, collect and pay these taxes. The license must be shown in the unit and in all advertising. The state tax site where this is done is connected to the State Income tax system. Non-HI residents must file HI income tax on any profits they make. If you know of any STR owner that doesn’t do this, tell them they will certainly be caught and the fine will be huge.
Residential areas should be for actual residents. What a concept. The short-term rental market is destroying residential housing affordability and availability. Too many outsiders buying homes and not even living in them, just renting them out for profit and raising rents to inordinate levels. Investors even owning several homes and adding to the housing shortage.
Real estate agents cashing in by having first crack at homes for sale that happened to be at a decent price, and turning them into rental units. Often some short-term some long-term.
Ownership should require you to live in the house 180 days a year but there should be additional fees for outside investors. Or you can flip that the other way around for legal purposes.
Alohamg, what you say would make perfect sense if it were true. Problem is, none of it is true. Most STR investors only own 1 property, and that property has always been an STR. No one is “adding to the housing shortage”. No real estate agent is “cashing in” and turning homes into rental units – they have been capped. No more STRs can be built or converted from another use.
So basically, everything you are saying is incorrect.
What? Do you think that short-term rentals are only owned by mainlanders? You’ve got to be kidding. I know plenty of locals on short term. Vacation rentals. They own it out of necessity, do they make money and profit absolutely but it’s not Just a bunch of greedy mainlanders or real estate agents cashing in on the market. You really have no idea what you’re talking about
Andy, you are so correct. What about residents who want to rent their property for a few months, how come legal resident owners have to get screwed in this process? Also, what about those of us that may rent to traveling medical personnel for a short stay, they don’t always for 6 months.
Amen!
I suspect time share schedules are not nearly as flexible as most STRs We are 50 steps from the Pacific (5th floor) facing west and have a 3 day minimum. Check in and out any day of the week. No keys. Guests always deal the actual owner.
As someone who purchased a timeshare in a small (28 units) ‘resort’ decades ago, I’m wondering if the County is going to expropriate my interest in the unit? For many of us, timeshares are the only way we can afford to stay in HI, especially at a particular location. As we can’t afford to purchase a condo, much less a home, this is the best we can do. We who are ‘part owners’ of these facilities are not part of the ‘swarm’ that has flooded HI lately. We’re ‘regulars’, and we support the economy and try to be good visitors because we love this place almost as much as the locals.
I have a nephew on Oahu looking in vain for affordable housing. But of the dozens of short term rentals I’ve stayed in while visiting his family, only one would be suitable for him, or anyone else, to make into a permanent home. Most were very small, often just a room in someone’s house. Many had no kitchen. Shutting down these rentals does nothing to increase housing. What it Does do is eliminate an opportunity for a low-tech, low-impact, rejuvenating visit to Hawaii. I will miss it.
As a long time resident it’s about time the city catches up and starts more aggressive regulation over the short term housing market. I’m guessing the majority of these rentals are out of state owners. If that doesn’t work, they should be paying an equivalent of a hotel tax to the state.
Out of state owners still pay triple taxes for the privilege to str a property. Also paying many other local taxes. The units are maintained and managed by locals who make a living caring for the units. Put a local in the unit full time = less tax and list jobs. Think people.
Did you know that the STVR’s already pay the same or more tax than hotels (large out of state corporations)?
Doug, short term rental owners are already paying More taxes than hotels do, and have been for years. Please look at a tax rate sheet.
As far as “more aggressive regulation”, do you have any idea how strictly short term rentals are already regulated on all of the islands?
I really wish people would at least do a quick google search on the relevant topic before they post here. It will make for a much more intelligent discussion.
Doug, FYI vacation rentals do pay the hefty hotel tax.
When a lot of them sell their STR’s, and prices drop, those with recent mortgages will be underwater, and the problems from that will make everthing else look manini. I guess losing $200,000 in equity in a house with an older smaller mortgage is no problem either.
It is going to cut down on people who buy multiple houses to rent if you have one house you can rent it especially if you have a mother-in-law apartment at your place
There are many, many timeshare units for rent by the owner of those weeks. Go see Redweek for all of the details. These are almost always in better locations than STR in regular homes – generally right on the beaches. They always are surrounded by restaurants, luaus, and many other activities. There are no good reasons to rent a STR when there are several really good timeshares available.
Thank you for that info. Will check it out.
You have a misconception about where STRs are located on the islands, where they have been for 50 years. They are almost all in resort locations. Thousands of them. Very few of them, less than 5%, are located in people’s homes or any place that can be construed as a neighborhood.
Just wondering. If these short rentals are forced to shut down, what happens to these places? I doubt many of the residents can even afford to buy them, or rent them at the prices the owners will want. I doubt owners will lower their price should they decide to sell. How is Hawaii going to recoup all that tourism money coming in? I’m not going to stay in a hotel for 1-2 weeks, I guess that’s going to be the only option?
Think about it…now that you can no longer make money on that property and it’s no longer considered as a way of “income”, they wouldn’t be able to sell the house for more than it’s worth and essentially comps should decrease. This will hopefully significantly drop prices in hawaii to where locals can afford to buy. I think this is a great move considering the majority of STRs are owned mainlanders.
In America you are free to buy, sell, rent, or let sit vacant any property in any state. Don’t blame stvr. Blame the state of hawaii for not freeing up the huge amount of land it owns for housing. These politicians have been kicking that can down the road for decades.
No one knows for sure how this is all going to play out. We will all see very soon. However, I can tell you that myself and all other owners of STR I personally know of will not sell them. They will sit vacant when we are not on island. Most of us can afford not to sell them. We purchased them as second homes. We rent them out when we are not there to generate extra income. If we can’t do that. We will just keep them as second homes.
Also the $15,000-$20,000 dollars a year we pay to the state in Tat & Gat taxes will be gone. In addition, the local management company we pay to manage it will no longer be needed. That’s a lot of lost revenue to the state.
The price will but not so much that locals will be buying them. The market for people buying for personal use and just letting their friends and family use the condos will be at a higher price point. I’m hoping for that very situation where I can buy one!!
Sonja, why are you saying “Now that you can no longer make money on that property”? Nothing has been decided yet, this is only a proposal, and it will take years for it to make it through the process at the county and then the courts. Best case for the proposal is for the cutoff to be June of 2025 for West Maui and January of 2026 everywhere else.
Please don’t sabotage the accommodations; we need to get visitors in while we still can, in the off-chance that this passes followed by the inevitable crash for us residents.
Palm Springs is often mentioned as an example claiming that STVR limits will lower housing prices. The STVR limitation in Palm Springs has driven no reduction on housing prices. This came out today (Palm Springs Post): “Palm Springs was part of the broader regional trend, showing an 8% year-over-year increase in average home sale price to $1.37 million.”
However, a shift in ownership Will happen in Maui. The more middle class to upper middle class owners who must STVR to afford the property will give way to wealthier owners who will simply hold the properties vacant when they are not on island. Expect to see small restaurants and other businesses catering to the STVR crowd going out of business, while the golf courses flourish
Exactly on-target, Warren. But what people are still failing to realize is that nobody cares if this is really for resident affordability, or if the units remain empty most of the year, because this strategy isn’t about that. It is about removing business from the STRs and giving it to the hotels. So, we can talk and talk until we are blue in the face about how this won’t help affordability, but the real benefit for the residents will be to sequester the cattle, um, I mean visitors into the hotel surrounds, where the residents won’t have to deal with them. Hotels and residents with their own private sources of income will be happy.
And all while the hotel consortium is rubbing their hands together so excited for new business!
And therin lies the crux of the matter. This all points back to the hotels, who have been lobbying to remove STRs for a decade.
To Maui visitors: The current “list” of STRs the mayor wants to eliminate has about 7000 units on it. These are primarily zoned as apartments. There is another group of STRs that are (so far) not included on the list. Most are zoned as hotels. They will continue to operate and be available as STRs unless the mayor decides to include them. They are on the normal web sites and will continue to be available. So please keep coming to Maui. Just ask if the unit you’re interested in booking is zoned as a hotel or an apartment. As others have said, legal action is virtually assured so it could be years before we know what will happen to an individual unit or building. Mahalo.
In Hawaii (state or any county) everything is about corruption and dollars.
There is a huge shortage of affordable housing simply because new “safer” building codes
according to Hawaii’s countries are being adopted every year. These new codes add thousands of dollars to a building budget. Prices will unlikely to come down just because STRs are banned. Hawaii purposly keeps it’s residents poor so they are forced to work minimum wage jobs so even if some homes became available after banning Short term rentals , local residents are very unlikely to be able to afford them anyways. It’s all about political corruption and stupidity.
True, but if 7000 units were removed from the accommodations inventory, there wouldn’t be nearly enough units to meet normal demand, which means 7000 families per day will not be able to visit. In addition, the prices for remaining units would go sky high, since there wouldn’t be enough supply. The wealthy, both residents and visitors, would probably not be affected by this. Everyone else would be SOL.
Probably a good strategy for visitors is to come to Hawaii now, while they still can, just in case. It could be their last chance.
Our family comes to HI 2-3 times a year since 1989. We only stay in STR when we travel. We will no longer visit Maui and will have to watch what Oahu does, and keep our visits and dollars to the Big Island and Kauai or we will do what we did this year and took our tourist dollars to Tahiti.
My thought exactly. I don’t think the politicians realize how much tourism money will be lost.
Since 1989 you have been staying in residential areas and not timeshare hotels or apartments?
No, he has probably been staying at one of the 14,000 units in the resort areas. The number of STRs in neighborhoods is miniscule. Check the maps at each county.
No, he’s been staying in one of the 14,000 units in the resort areas. The number of short-term rentals in neighborhoods is minuscule. Check the maps and the county policies before you say something so inflammatory. The visitors aren’t the problem here.
Clearly, few Hawaii government officials have taken ECON 101. The downstream effects of this will be catastrophic as many have pointed out. Plus, govenment officials are lazy by pinning “the pain” on your dependable tax base instead of doing the hard work to figure a way to find affordable housing for residents. For the first time ever, I am considering never going back to Hawaii.
Reality bites!
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, I remember that old saying.
We’ve been going to Kihei every other year for 2 weeks for the last 30 years and can’t believe on how many tourists have overtaken the streets and beaches. We get a two week membership to the gym and eat mainly at food trucks because the restaurants are always full. The local beaches are the same, we just camp out by the pool.
Been looking to move there, we’ve been checking out houses lately, we’ll see where this goes.
Staying in our timeshare in Kihei (MBVC). Bought it in 2000 when we got married in McKenna on January 1st, 2000 at sunset. That’s an easy anniversary to remember.
Before that we rented at Kamoeli Sands or a place over by the post office of the water. Then we decided to buy something, time shares are a pain but if you can work around the scheduling they’re okay
I’m going to miss Hawaii but I’m not going to go broke trying to enjoy it. You have priced yourself out of business as far as I’m concerned. I won’t return.
Getting rid of short term rentals will affect a lot of income. This is not the answer.
Just build more long term housing and label it long term for residents. It’s not that hard. You need more construction companies building more housing for residents. Send wood and supply. State needs applications for new housing with modified income requirement and let the state swallow the costs (this can be recovered using short term taxes) so the construction companies can come and build.
Where are you going to build? This isn’t the mainland where there is a plethora of open space areas to construct housing on and call it low income or affordable housing just so mainlanders can enjoy a home in communities for a short period of time.
Fly over all of the islands sometime and you will see how little of the islands are inhabited, and how much of the lands are available for building housing for the island people. Some of it has already been set aside for Hawaiian natives and their descendants, but the government keeps holding these lands back with bureaucratic red tape. It’s been decades now.
It’s time for the island people to start focusing on the shortcomings of government policies and processes, instead of being hoodwinked by usual their usual strategy of blaming others.
After over 50 years of visiting Hawaii and spending weeks in hotels & a month or more in condos if this 180 day rental is enacted it will be time to find another vacation spot. For years now we have spent the month of May in a condo. From Hawaiian Airlines, car rental, condo rental, food & other things, shopping and eating out that month ends up putting close to $20,000 into the economy of Hawaii. We will skip Hawaii and spend an additional month in NYC each year. We will spend less & get better food for less money. Let’s see how many natives can afford a million dollar condo with $2,400 monthly fees without tourist income.
You realize that NYC banned all STRs.
This is not Disneyland. This is an actual living, breathing mass of people with an extreme lack of housing. There will still be precious condos in designated areas.
But also, just take your Boomer entitlement and stay in NYC instead of coming here. One less person like you who feels they should be catered to and who’s enjoyment is more important than another human’s well being and existence. Mahalo.
Very well said, Seth.
Hawaii is very dependent of the tourism industry and has been that way for quite some time this is a complex issue it has complex solutions to fix it. By doing this it will lead will lead to ramifications that could have been avoided.
FYI to all the negative Disney people here did you know that in As Orange County’s largest employer, Disneyland Resort Orange County California is home to over 35,000 employees and Disney World in Florida has over 77,000 employees? This does not include all the outside contractors. Close of elimination Disney then it would drastically cause a downturn in those areas.
Hawaii you will see this new law have drastically effect you . Open your eyes
Exchanging one problem for several others. Josh Greene should stick to malpractice.
Demand is “sliding” because some are giving up on Hawaii as a destination. Tourists believe all residents are telling them “don’t come”. Hawaii tourism assoc & the state need to clarify that. A large % of Hawaii’s economy is based on the “visitor industry”, & the state budgets for roads, hospitals, schools, etc will tank, as locals lose jobs. Many locals do run short term vacation rentals. Is it violating the Constitutional rights of STVR business owners to shut down only their businesses & not other types of businesses? When associated owners, mgrs, housekeepers, etc., lose their jobs, & can’t pay the mortgages on these properties, who will provide their families with food & shelter. Many angles to consider.
Danj. Exactly correct. Our two party system works well as long as both parties are present. Only 4 state legislators voted against the bill that gave the counties total control of STRs. Campaign contributions must have been gigantic. In the end, the native Hawaiians will suffer the most. I’m terrified to see what the Government has planned for Lahaina.