Caught in the cross-hairs of both the legislature and the hotel lobby. Are you still inclined to choose Hawaii vacation rentals over hotels?
Caught in the cross-hairs of both the legislature and the hotel lobby. Are you still inclined to choose Hawaii vacation rentals over hotels?
We generally do one week in our timeshare and one week in a vacation rental property that will provide a kitchen. So much more economical than a hotel room. With one exception, these vacation rental properties were in no way properties that locals would rent, i.e. they were not reducing the housing for locals. It would be interesting to know what % of vacation rental properties are in residential areas and truly reducing local housing. Not having vacation rental properties in HI would be terrible! Thanks for your reporting, BOH!
Prices for hotels and vacation rentals are nearing the breaking point for most folks outside of the top 5%. Add in rental car costs, parking, fees both private and public, and airline tickets. Not to mention food and entertainment costs and you’re looking at a minimum of $12K for a family of 4 for a bare bones vacation.
I’m at the point I just flat out budget 8K from start to finish for all costs for 2 weeks… What did Lyndon Johnson’s top economic adviser once note? “That which cannot continue will stop”.
Best Regards
We have had a share in a condo since 1978, and own a family condo full time.
Our condo share does not rent, and my sister stays in our unit 6 to 7 months.
We bought our cars in Hawaii, insure our condo and cars locally, shop locally as well as have friends that visit and do tourist things.
The increase in taxes having a rentable condo is making us consider renting or selling. As a homeowner we can not afford $22,000 a year taxes. We just purchased a home in Arizona with taxes of $3200 a year. We are very sad to leave Maui.
True Christine,
You end up having to rent it at least 10 weeks net just to pay for the increased tax. You are working for the county. Fortunately the counties don’t need this tax money because the state wants to close you down. Who am I kidding, they will just raise everyone’s rate ro make it up
Seems that properties within a few blocks of the beach should be exempt from legislative controls. Sure its important to aide resident housing, but not in optimal rental properties.
A definite sign that government don’t know what they are talking about, but the usual efforts of trying to control the owners in favor of the hotel/motel industry!! Leave the owners alone and stop trying to control them further!
Our home on Kauai is a legal vacation rental when we are off-island (about half the year). It is nearly always occupied. No noticeable decrease in demand through the years. Between increasing our property taxes 50%, the annual license renewal fee, and even the $1K extra it costs for trash service a year, Kauai county makes a lot of money off of it. I guess they won’t miss that money if they succeed at killing it. Nor will it become “local” housing. All that will happen is the house will be empty when we or family or friends are not here.
“Includes swapping, bartering, or exchange of a residential dwelling, in definition of “short-term rental””
Setting aside the unconstitutionality of such proposal, how the heck could it be enforced? I want want to allow friends or family to stay in my house when I am not there, it’s none of the state’s business. If they invite me to stay at their place in some other state, again, not anyone’s business.
And they cannot treat resident owners any differently than non-resident owners, despite their anti-outsider emotional tantrum. Possibly they can treat owner-occupied rental (e.g., an Ohana or spare bedroom), but that is rarely what people (especially with families) want to rent.
From reading the text of the bill, you would not be subject to family/friends use if you do not charge, barter or exchange. The only issue I see that disturbs local residents are the un-permitted residential areas where parking and noise disrupts the neighborhoods. I agree that “resort zone” units are the same as most hotel locations and should be treated as alternatives.
As for regulating short-term rentals, there is no need to stigmatize non-residents, though 70% of illegal vacation rentals are operated by out-of-state owners. Local VR managers and following the VR process for legally operating a rental would satisfy the need to make sure visitors have the best VR experience.
So we stay at their house by coincidence when they stay at our house. It’s not an exchange. Just worked out that way.
What source and data do you have for 70% of illegal rentals are out of state owners? And what difference does it make. If illegal, shut it down. Does not matter where the owner has a driver’s license
So, you should have no complaints. The stat. is from the Governor’s office and Maui Mayor Bissen confirmed that a few absentee landlords on Maui own 75 or more short term rentals.
Though not a topic of this thread, the issue of mainland ownership is compounding the problem of finding longer term housing for Lahaina residents. Even though a combination of homeowners insurance and state and federal disaster subsidies brings the compensation for a 2/br TO ~$10k/month (yikes!) to those mainlanders who agree to switch from short to long term leases, they can’t find enough good-hearted people to agree, even at that compensation. Now some long-term landlords are kicking existing renters out so they can reap more.
A’we! Greed wins.
1) 48% of short-term rentals are owned by residents of Hawaii. If the government shuts those down, they are hurting their own people.
2) Enough “good-hearted people” have offered housing. The problem is that the displaced don’t want the housing offered for various reasons (e.g. not close enough to Lahaina, no disability accommodations, not enough bedrooms, etc.).
Since the illegal rentals are known (they are spouting percentages, so they must know who the owners are), why isn’t time/energy being spent shutting them down? Seems that would be the most direct way to free up housing, since they seem to think that shutting down short-term rentals will accomplish this (although they are dead wrong about that).
I lived in Wahiawa, Oahu, Hawaii in July 1965 until August 1967. I attended 6th & 7th grade then at Wahiawa Elem., & then, Wahiawa Intermediate School. I am a Retired Early Childhood/ Special Educator that loves learning & teaching. My favorite tree was the “Rainbow Tree” in the gardens.
How does this “lack of visitor interest” jibe with the thousands and thousands of people I’ve read about here on BOH that have stated that they would not be able to visit Hawaii if it weren’t for short-term rentals? These “lack of visitor interest” numbers don’t compute.
Exactly Pat! We don’t stay at resorts; family of 45 we want room. A home is the best way for us. Resorts are noisy, cramped, impersonal and hella expensive. Our grown daughters come with us and we shop locally. Been coming since 1969 when I was 18. My uncle was Hawaiian, born and raised in Paia. We are always respectful and courteous in our daily life. I hope we get the feeling of Aloha from our “happy place” when we come to Kauai in May!
In the Governor’s previous statements he referred to an overwhelming proportion of illegal short-term rental properties. If the government acted to stop these illegal short-term rental properties, the remaining legal short term rental properties would pose virtually no threat to the hotel industry.
One wonders how many of these illegal properties are locally owned, and if that is a reason for government inaction.
In any case, it should be a priority to eliminate illegal accommodations in order to protect those who play by the rules.
~70% of VR’s are illegally operated and owned by out-of-state owners.
Hmmm…can you cite the source of this statistic? Not trying to be facetious, just want to read the source.
Already cited the sources as the Governor and Mayor Bissen. Feel free to fact check.
Are you speaking of your statement “The stat. is from the Governor’s office and Maui Mayor Bissen confirmed that a few absentee landlords on Maui own 75 or more short term rentals?”
I am asking for the source about your statement “~70% of VR’s are “Illegally Operated” and owned by out-of-state owners.”
Again – I am Not trying to fact check or be facetious, so no need to be defensive. I am just trying to find the specific source to read it in entirety.
Thanks JamesB. Where is that information available? If 70% of illegal short term rentals are out of state owners, why doesn’t the government shut them down? What is the point of obtaining a license if the government won’t enforce the rules?
Sorry. This has been all over the local news for more than a week, so the story is repeated by multiple sources. To answer your enforcement question, please note: Of the state’s roughly 565,000 total housing units, 30,000 are listed as short-term vacation rentals, meaning about 5% of local housing units operate as tourist accommodations (likely a low %). It would take a small army of auditors to track down, then another army of lawyers to prosecute.
The HTA was the original source of the 70% number. The new director, Mufi Hanneman, was applying that number to Maui in particular. Overall, out-of-state ownership is 52%, with 27% of owners owning 20 or more units.
Correct. As I said elsewhere in the comments to this post, 48% of short-term rentals are owned by Hawaii residents.
Thanks. It may well be a number that somebody stated without a careful review of facts. It might be possible that the “70% of illegal owners live out of state” quote is a line that keeps getting repeated without proper verification. If everyone has to post their license # on airbnb and vrbo it would not be hard to check.
Jeffrey H., they do have to have a registration number on Airbnb, at least on Maui. They removed over 1200 STRs from the platform after registration numbers were made mandatory.
Knowing how many legal STRs there are doesn’t help with knowing how many illegal STRs there are, though. That’s why, to me, throwing out a percentage for illegal STRs is suspect.