Will these bold moves succeed? As Maui reconsiders its own extreme cuts and Barcelona moves to abolish all short-term apartments by 2028, the world watches to see if these new policies will solve housing crises or create new challenges.
Leave a Comment
38 thoughts on “Vacation Rental Drastic Measures: Maui Vs. Barcelona”
The elimination/restrictions of short term rentals is happening globally. I was a fan of short term rentals but now understand how they impact housing,communities; and also the local job market ;and now there is a shortage of plumbers,nurses,retail clerks,County Workers because people are employed by short term rentals; ,but it’s created a kind of class system.
I travel to a place that I genuinely love in Italy; and I will continue to travel there despite changes being made to short term rentals.
Travelers that state they will not return to Maui/Hawaii if short term rentals are restricted ,will find other places to visit; and the folks who love Hawaii will continue to find a way to visit
I feel the solution to affordable housing is not shutting down rentals. As crazy as it seems, the solution is to actually build affordable housing. There are large plots of land just waiting to be built on in Hawaii. What’s the Government doing over there? They seem to want to do everything except build.
I have lived in Maui (Huelo & Napili) and was impacted in a negative way by the short term rentals. Turning residential neighborhoods into “hotels” is not fair to the residences who live there. Many people who buy these properties Can’t afford them without renting. I do believe that even though I am not a fan, there will many lawsuits and it won’t have the intended impact of creating more housing for locals for many years
The article mentioned several times that short term rentals may increase on Maui, if there Is a reduction in the legal ones. Not mentioned is the fact that Maui has already instituted very strict $20,000 per day penalties for illegal short-term rentals.
Finding the illegal ones is not that difficult since almost all of them advertise somewhere on the Internet.
Regulations of this nature tend to get driven underground. People find a way around them, and the enforcement of these kinds of regulations seems to be elusive. Consequently, you end up with STRs with no tax money coming in. Even the Mayor and the Council recognize this unintended consequence.
I feel that the whole idea of “Aloha” is phony. In the 1970s, we were in Hilo, and decided to leave. The hatred among the various cultural groups was palpable. Japanese Hawaiians and Filipino Hawaiians and Hawaiian Hawaiians all talked smack about each other. And they yelled out to us from passing trucks, as “haoles.” It was just plain ugly. When we came back to visit Maui years later, it seemed to have calmed down. Yet, maybe not. I think this anti-tourism thing will flow back into where it was before, and reveal the cultural schisms that must still be there.
I get the concern about the effect that the “ban”, which isn’t a “ban”, it’s a reduction in the number of STVRs, could have on the economy of Maui. But everyone that I see posting here is making the assumption that when 7K STVRs get shut down, that All of those people who would have used them simply don’t come to Maui at all, ever. I doubt that’s the case. I think it’s going to be more complex than that and an unbiased study might be just the thing to see what the impact might actually be.
Does Barcelona have a high percentage of non-owner occupied and non-resident investment owners?
First off, Barcelona/Spain is not 90% dependent on tourism. Every person and business on Maui benefits in one way or another from tourism as does the island and state. This articles may make the mayor feel like his plans to ban STRs is acceptable but there are more differences than similarities to our needs and the effects. There are other jobs/commerce in Spain. Our people will have to leave for jobs.