Did Governor Green go overboard with his remarks or were they on target? A whirlwind of debate surrounds Hawaii vacation rentals.
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Did Governor Green go overboard with his remarks or were they on target? A whirlwind of debate surrounds Hawaii vacation rentals.
Get Breaking Hawaii Travel News
My my my. Governor Green is so out of touch. He makes it sound very simple . Just do as I say or else. And by the way…..just because you are a resident of somewhere doesn’t mean you “deserve” something especially when it doesn’t belong to you. Wow. You don’t deserve anything. You have to put in an effort and achieve something on your own and not on the backs of others. What a hypocrite….. “king Green “
Will the Governor’s rules apply to time share properties? If not, how would this be fair to the offshore condo owners? We have vacationed in Hawaii every year for the last 20 years. It has gotten too expensive and we will not return. I wonder how many condos are owned by Chinese Nationals.
Most are owned by people who live on the West Coast (California etc.)
FEMA wants to your place no vetting of renter and no limit on number of people in unit. Will they take care of the unit being landlord for almost 4o years I think not, so I am left in 2 years with a place that I will need to put 200k in to restore to original condition.
What condition have they left hotel rooms?
Why would I ?
Wow – Perhaps some of the fire victims could accept housing in places other than West Maui. I live in Colorado. Nobody that works in Aspen lives there. Nobody that works at Vail lives there.
They do this thing called commuting…..
Bruh….. Islanders are infamous for complaining every time they have to drive anywhere for more than 10 minutes or up a hill. It’s one of the many weird things that happen to people due to island living.
It’s weird, because I went the other direction – I enjoyed circling O’ahu, and I thought nearly nothing about driving to Waikiki from Schofield to see a movie or just to hang out.
Of course, parking for the military was free in Waikiki back then…
I live in Colorado as well and was thinking the same thing.
I can tell you the problem from talking to many propety owners on Maui that could take part.
They are all scared that the tenants won’t move out or pay rent when the FEMA stimulus ends. The fear is they then be left with squatters who could take years to get out. If the governor addresses this many more will participate.
We have been coming to Maui since the 80s. My sister and I purchased a condo where we have been visiting for years, hoping to retire to Maui. Since we are in a short-term rental condo building, our yearly taxes have increased to $22,500.
This is a 1970s, 806 sq. ft. condo.
We enjoy supporting local businesses, and our friends who visit support tourist activities.
We purchased a car from a local dealer, insured our condo and car locally, and attended church.
We Do Not want to be a landlord. We have been landlords on the mainland for decades and are getting out of the business because of all the issues. Now we have taxes so high and our quarterly association dues. No Aloha left on Maui.
I love Maui, and it was so sad to scenes of desolation played out on the news. It amazes me how often state citizens vote in leaders again and again and expect a different outcome. I wonder if it’s ignorance or stupidity. Ignorance not corrected becomes stupidity.
No offense, but what happened to free enterprise? Why not force other lodging suppliers to convert their units to long term rentals? Do you think that short term rentals do not create jobs? Cleaning, repair, maintenance, etc? Why should out of state big corporations be given a pass? Isn’t thing protectionism first hand?
I think it important to use the data that is easily accessed from State of Hawaii regarding the true ownership allocation for West Maui short-term rentals. I don’t recall the exact source I saw, but I definitely feel like it’s a Pareto-based breakdown (80% of the condos are owned by 20% of the Owners). With this in mind, it would sure make sense to target larger portfolio-based Owners with (e.g. 20+ condos) to migrate some to long-term displaced resident use vs picking on an Owner that owns a single unit and Owner-occupies that unit on a regular basis. I agree that Gov Green has a tough decision to make, let’s just make it a data-based decision.
Totally agree with you, Jeff.
Even if many short term rentals were converted to long term rentals it would not alleviate the problem because they would not be affordable to most of the population needing housing. The only real solution is to build more affordable housing.
Jist what do you conside to be affordable housing for lahaina?
Makes sense to me and many others. But do you dare challenge King Greens leadership and decisions?
All the government mismanagement is the cause of this tragedy and now he’s on his high horse pretending to care? Hard to believe he ever took the hippocratic oath.
It has been 204 days since fire devastated Lahaina.
Now, a huge (obscene) amount of money is being spent to move dirt around & house survivors – to keep them from returning to where they lived before the fire.
Out of all the houses burnt, not One lot is “safe” to rebuild on??? Zero permits? Not even on the edge of the burn zone???
It looks like Lahaina people are being prevented from rebuilding so josh can keep the promises he made to his buddies at the U.N.
Blaming vac rentals for the housing situation is just a distraction.
Two in my building on the west side offered up their short term rentals For the long-term 18 months for the locals in need, even though it was going to be a
monetary loss for them.
They went through all the required paperwork and were ready then on February 1st they were told their condos were not needed they had enough. This was
after they had canceled short-term rentals that were coming in February. So someone is dropping the ball somewhere.
This is similar to a fear I had with this offer. I had no issues with financial part of the offer, but I wanted my management company to keep my condo available for reservations until we had a confirmed tenant. That wasn’t allowed and I also became concerned about what other unintended circumstances could occur. I passed…plus I’m in S. Maui and our condo is very small and a good 45 mins from Lahaina anyway.
That is exactly what I was afraid of, so I rented my condo (long term) to a young professional couple instead (for much less than what FEMA offered). I like peace of mind and that includes my neighbors! Not being allowed to meet potential tenants (FEMA) and having to deal with out of state property managers while I am myself got licensed in Hawaii didn’t make any sense to me.
Governor Greene is doing what leaders are required to do. Make tough decisions. Converting short term rentals to long term rentals is a very sensible solution in this situation. Off shore ownership of properties is a problem for business as well as residential. Offshore conglomerate ownership exploits the island for individual gain insensitive to income vs expense of lease. Good job Gov. Greene
If he was a leader this tragedy would not have happened. Lotta sand there for people to bury their heads in, and keep voting for this
He is not the Mayor of Maui and bad infrastructure on Maui existed way before both of them were elected.
In his 1st press conference after the fire Green told the world “Don’t come to Maui. Not now”, piling job loss onto housing lost. He threatened potential buyers of burned lots like they were carpetbaggers, weighing in against those who want to sell & move on w/ their lives. He has further busted the state budget w/ $30M/mo to house 800+ illegal aliens & COFA Micronesians, ineligible by law for FEMA aid, putting them up in $1,000/day hotel rooms. He has failed to provide the housing he promised, preferring instead to steal it from others. Where are the travel trailers & modular housing units FEMA normally sends? he keeps shooting us in the foot.
To extrapolate then, you are in favor of forcing offshore conglomerates to sell their hotels, correct?
I appreciate the Governor’s frustration, however this lightning rod & finger pointing at STR owners is misguided at the least, if not downright off base. Each county regulates what it’s willing to allow to be built, so those are the areas to be point fingers at. Further to that, which a lot of mainlanders might not know, is that most of those tax dollars subsidize owner occupied, lowest-in-the-nation property taxes. I find it ironic that they’ll put the burden on STR owners, rather than forcing Hotel taxes. Smells of collusion, especially with current rates totally astronomical. Reduce that STR tax stream and watch yourself get voted out next term. Mark my words. Being a doctor doesn’t make you a businessman.
And the fact the at head of the HTA also in charge of hotels … nothing fishy there ….
And what happens in two years. Does this go on forever? Where is the talk about getting started on fast tracking some new housing of all types. This should have been done ten years ago and wouldn’t have had this shortage in first place
It’s easy to see that Governor Green is picking the low hanging fruit alternative here to house his constituents. Think of it, immediate housing (hardly any construction needed) and fewer tourists. Fewer tourists is a subject treated by many BOH articles lately. I am not taking a stand here. We have enjoyed many trips to Maui staying in short term rentals in the Kihei area but visiting West Maui frequently for various reasons. We love coming to Maui and we love Hawaiian culture. We always try to respect and support local businesses and those we come in contact with.
Doing away with short term rentals would be a negative to us since we wouldn’t come if we had to stay in Hotels. We love Lahaina and our hearts ache for the people.
So it sounds like the long term Maui residents who live and pay rent are going to be displaced because FEMA will pay more. Also I don’t expect owners of multi million dollar vacation rentals will settle for $11,000 per month.
Wow! $11,000 a month is not expensive enough? Where are we going?
Well, I expected better vocabulary from someone with a medical degree speaking publically. That said, Governor, if you have a local who can buy my condo at the current market price, I’m happy to be rid of it and your (guess what word I’d insert here) taxes. Judging by the sales stats I’ve seen, it doesn’t look likely.
Agree. We’d sell as well. With the condo comes a monthly AOAO fee and a large assessment. It’s not the answer to the housing problem. Especially in these older buildings that were built as vacation rentals and not for long term housing.
Who’s going to buy it from you for even what you paid for it after all that? Have the State buy them at fair market value with all of the GE and TA taxes they collect.
This is why they are trying to drive values down. Then the state can enforce eminent domain and pay less. Stirring conflict is a distraction. There are probably already deals with hotels to take over Lahaina. They can not allow re building that close to the ocean. So, who loses their property? Those within the set backs or the low hanging fruit? The locals that were uninsured or underinsured that will stay in limbo. Locals against tourism and the jobs they will need to fight back better wake up.
The biggest obstacle to the Governor’s plan is the Governor’s actions. His emergency eviction moratorium is a huge barrier for potential landlords. As long as the eviction moratorium is in place, a landlord can’t remove a bad tenant and regain control of the property. A rational potential landlord won’t take that risk.
I have displaced individuals in my str and now I have roaches. After 15 years of ownership never a bug! Since were neighbors lets be friends.
Just have a bug co come out once a month. Hawaii is a tropical place, we got bugs.
Westmaui:
Our north shore Kauai home is nearly 14 feet off the ground on concrete columns, and I religiously keep any and all trees, hedges, etc., out of contact with the house and columns. We also have a local pest control company spray inside and outside at least once a quarter, and we still get those things (and the occasional centipedes and cane spiders) from time to time. The morning after the pest control spray is time for the “husband vacuums the roach corpses that crawled out and died near the baseboards so that his wife won’t shriek.”
Vacation rentals in areas zoned resort = fine.
Vacation rentals in areas zoned residential or ag = dump them all across the entire state of Hawaii. (This is already happening all across the globe as speculation in the housing market has caused all sorts of problems).
Vacation rentals have been around across the United States for over 35+ years. Back when they used to be advertised via classified ads. The problem here is the mass illegal and unlicensed vacation rentals that are operating. They need to find a way to close down all illegal and non-licensed STR’s. This is the problem here.
Again, dump all STVR’s in Residential zoning. That’s for Residents , clearly. AG is for, you guessed it, AG.
STVR’s in resort zoning, no problem, speculate away….
This Governor is an absolute clown. You can’t for d people to convert property the took the risk in owning. Not to mention he’s killing tourism. Hawaiians are screwed.
Hawaiians are already screwed with all the speculation in the housing market. Many, many have already left in record numbers.
Is the Governor living in North Korea? Last I heard this is the United States of America.
Decades of complete land mismangment by the Hawaiian government helped lead to this catatastrophe and now Green (10 years as Lt Gov and Gov) wants to penalize legal property owners as some kind of remedy. This is completely unconstitutional and no good will come from this yet Hawaii voters keep voting for this incompetence. Sad…
Profanity? Come-on, that’s a reach. There’s not even an “F” word.
I don’t want to come across as insensitive, but it sounds like there is FEMA housing available, it just happens that not all of it is in West Maui and will require a longer commute. It might be a bit of an inconvenience for some locals compared to where they previously lived, but it is housing and an increased commute of 30-45 minutes really is not that big of a deal.
There have been other natural disasters in the US where people have had to relocate. I thing Greens and some locals anger is misplaced, In an ideal world there would be housing available in West Maui, but to say housing isn’t available or acceptable and trying to force STR owners to make their houses in resort areas available is unreasonable.
Absolutely right. Free house and on the island. Many are not working so what inconvenience is there? Costs are also less expensive there than here. It should be a nice break for them. Call it a staycation on someone else’s dime. I personally know of a lot of available rentals and yes they are being turned down. Some like the drama. It will be slow going this way. Why not appreciate the help that is available?
All Hawaii needs to do is add a 10% per year property tax for short term rentals, mostly vacant houses and all second residences. Easy as that.
Suzi L.:
Kauai island already highly penalizes non-resident owners way more than 10%. Legal vacation rentals (regardless if how owns it) are taxed an additional 50% property tax on top of the annual license fee and other increased fees (even garbage collection). A big chunk of the county’s tax collections come from non-resident second homes and TVRs. Not to mention the 20% accommodations taxes the visitors pay. If that all goes away in Green’s fever dream, the county with be in big financial trouble. I suspect the other islands are no different.
These huge payments from FEMA and the state have massively distorted the rental market on Maui. Even though they’re intended to apply only to vacation rentals, asking rents for long term rentals have skyrocketed, especially since the beginning of the year. Social media is full of egregious examples of this greed, along with numerous long term Maui residents being evicted for “renovations”. Why are we rewarding those who would turn our neighborhoods into hotels, driving up prices and rents and depriving residents of stable, affordable housing, especially since most of the owners aren’t even Hawaii residents but are just exploiting the islands for their private benefit.
Costs have gone up. Rents had to follow. The 800 a month room will never be again. You were lucky while you had it. Real rents have always been high. Look at the costs of utilities, taxes, maintenance insurance etc.. Landlords do not rent to take a loss. That is not where the blame should go.
We kept our rent the same for the last 3 years, losing money each year now. GET went up AOAO $150, Insurance… What are we supposed to do? Sell not rent? From what I understand locals can’t afford rent how are they going to afford a mortgage? What do you want us to do?
As someone who goes to and will continue to go to Napili Bay twice a year. It is hard to balance the need for tourism with the needs of displaced residents. However I do not think that a governor has the power to legally force owners to rent to the states fire victims. The best solution would be to build affordable housing with rent controls. That is the only long term solution.
So the Governor is mad that people won’t destroy their personal investments for vacation rentals and sell their properties against their will but he isn’t mad that our federal government spent over 100 billion dollars in handouts to Ukraine and billions more given in foreign aid to other countries. Where would Hawaii’s economy be without tourism income. It looks like another case where basic free market economics aren’t understood and the resulting crackdown on private investment will cause huge problems for Hawaii in the future which will them be blamed on something else
It seems Hawaii has a problem for sure. Without the tourist dollar they’ll have another problem. Hotel rates are absurd. Of course the hotel industry supports the restriction on short term rentals. More $ for them. Without short term rentals I and many other visitors will stop coming to Hawaii.
Guess after 20 years of visiting family in Hawaii (3-4 week in duration) I’ll just bring them to the mainland. Hawaiian Aloha seems to be declining. So be it.
1.5 million? Thats just pure insanity. Why should the tax payers be shelling out 1.5 million for each person that dies in the fire? They dont do that if someone died the day before. What makes them so special?
The “governor” should be paying out of his own millions. This is on him. His swearing and being dramatic should not fool anyone, yet it does.
They potentially have grounds for suing the state for a lot more. I’m willing to bet accepting that money requires signing away any chance at a lawsuit, class action or otherwise.
$11,000 month for a 4-bedroom unit…. Tell Kileauea to get with the program, Hawaii needs more land.
Flying over the islands you see how much untouched land there is. They should give up some of the state and federal owned property and build affordable housing on it! Why take from the residents when the state can give what they already own.
Lots of questions here, the first being the legality of Gov Green’s ban on short-term rentals starting April 1. I doubt this would hold up in the courts, where this is surely headed. How will the governor compensate the workers of the professional rental management companies, who he is essentially putting out on the street? Does this affect every island, or just Maui, where the governor seems to be focused? Lots of the multi-unit resorts are land-lease rentals. How are the owners of those properties going to be compensated if the unit owners no longer need to pay property taxes? Just taking the $5000 per month figure, with 89,000 short-term units, that’s $445 MILLION per month! Where is that money coming from? And on and on.
The Govenor is chewing on the hands of the voters with his attacks on Vaca rentals. He upsets enough voters, then maybe his term will be over. Those owners can not pay the mortgages without the added income.
Perhaps Hawaii will switch to a more business savy political party. This means to stop electing people that provide lots of talk, lots of government “free” perks to properly connected business.
Instead elect lesders that dont accept shoddy performance at all infrastructure locations. Elect leaders who do not expect all off-islanders to begrudgingly accept the payment burden to come to a “run down” “over-priced” burned-up anti-visitor Paradise Lost.
Change your expectations, your votes, and improve your own lives!!
The fires in Maui from what one reads where in part caused or allowed to get worse by incompetence in the lack of proper maintenance of the electrical system and then the follow up to put fires out quickly by the fire departments. True or not that is the basis of stories told. How can tourists be held to blame for poor planing and use of tax money to ensure the area was stable and its Citizens were properly cared for. Maybe there should have been more control on housing for the citizens a long time ago.
Aloha Jeff and Rob. So the governor uses profanity when he doesn’t get his way? You can just feel the Aloha. I must admit, it’s not a very welcoming or professional tone for someone in his position. But, what can you expect from someone who finally his stature and has his piece of Paradise and doesn’t want to share
Thank you, Governor, for calling off-islanders excrement. I feel for your constituents, all working 2 or more jobs just to exist, not live, and all you can think of to relieve their plight is to blame a faceless, nameless group Who Are Paying your government property taxes, proceeds of which you are supposed to use to fix the quality of all Hawaiian’s life; not just vote yourself a pay raise for blaming others. Sure I’ll pay property taxes to a state which is planning to seize private property owner’s residences….Not!
Aloha everyone ❤️🌺
I think he calls it like it is and I respect his comments, I agree and fully support them also.
John
Let me guess John, you are receiving the 1.5 million and Fema funds to live for however long you decide to stay in a place that is paid for by my and every other taxpayer that had no fault in this natural disaster. Does anyone understand natural disaster on an Island that was not equipped with the tools or knowledge to handle it. Who all can you blame. Oh that’s right you are all blaming the people that pay the taxes and invest in Maui every year.
I use profanity when describing the governor of Hawaii.
Bingo! And mahalo!