Support for Bill 108
The new short-term vacation rental Bill 108 is being delayed. This is understandable, purely from a political process point of view. But if the bill gets pulled, our neighborhoods are left with no protections!
There are roughly 4,500 listings today on the Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway websites for our island. At the current growth rate, there will be 10,000 short-term rentals next year.
Can we even imagine what 10,000 listings will do to our communities, to rents, to our beaches?
Our most precious neighborhoods, once fairly peaceful with little traffic — just simple family homes and public parks — are being flooded with rental cars. It seems every open lot is being hunted by hungry real estate investors wanting to be part of the boom. How do we balance that with the protection of our spectacular, unspoiled landscape and traditional lifestyle?
Seventy percent of short-term vacation rentals listed for our island are for entire houses, rooms or cabins. Airbnb began as a way for people to garner extra income by renting out their home when they take a family vacation or go out of town on business. Now, semi-legal hotel operators have bastardized the system by buying entire blocks of residential neighborhoods and renting them through Airbnb or VRBO as if they are hotel suites.
Enter Keaukaha, our own precious shoreline. Have you noticed that all the beach houses around Richardson Ocean Park recently have rental cars in front of them? Have you seen the three-story, many-room building going up right next to the shoreline? Do you know that the builder of that dwelling lives off island and rents four entire houses right next to it?
It’s time for us to regulate these commercially minded landlords exploiting online booking websites. At the same time, we should support those who simply share out an extra room part of the year.
No improvement is possible without trying to separate short-term rentals that are OK from those that are not. Someone will call that discrimination. So be it. We can’t back down for that reason alone.
Bill 108 is the best thing we have to put a bandage on the problem and stop the bleeding. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater!
Stefan Buchta
Leleiwi Beach Association, Hilo
It really sounds to me like you want to discriminate against people making a buck. There is a demand for these types of accommodations. Property owners are just filling that demand. You live in an area that is very popular with tourists. Hate them all you want but they bring in much needed cash.
On a side note, it is hilarious to watch tourists get planted by a shore break.
Thanks for your comment, Keauukeli. Love that
There’s a demand for McDonald’s, too, but just because there’s a demand doesn’t mean we should allow fast-food restaurants in residential neighborhoods, and we shouldn’t allow tourist accommodation businesses in residential neighborhoods, either. Tourist accommodations should only be located in areas zoned for that. People can make all the money they want, but they need to do it in places that are zoned for their businesses.
These numbers are vastly inflated. Many people list on multiple sites. Many of these are hosted rentals where the owner lives in the house. Also, there is no evidence for the idea that the growth will exceed 10,000 listings next year. Please, let’s have a discussion about this issue. There is no need to make things up to make a point.
Hotinhawaii… I wish they were inflated. There are 4,366 listings on AirBnB alone last week for the Big Island. 70% were for entire housing units.
Kailua Kona 2 1,744 71% $219 89%
Pahoa 582 70% $127 75%
Waikoloa 449 61% $315 93%
Kamuela/Puako/Kawaiihae 423 54% $519 92%
Hilo 332 67% $142 56%
Volcano 245 64% $168 75%
Keaau 224 61% $125 79%
Other Areas 367 65% $139 64%
Hawaii Island Total 4,366
Some of these listings are for individual rooms in the same home. The airbnb “entire house” label is not accurate in many cases and refers instead to rooms in a house, possibly hosted. This number also includes all listings in the resort zones which are already excluded by this bill.
Yes, AirBnB labels can be misleading, but I found very few cases where the same space was listed twice. So every listing takes a space off the long term rental market. I will publish the number of listings in non-resort or urban zones here soon. It is substantial, especially in areas like Volcano which is mostly single-family zoned
This idea that every vacation rental removes a long term rental from the market is patently false. Some mainland residents own second homes here and rent our their homes short term while they are not here. They would never consider long term rental of their vacation home. And many vacation rental homes are built expressly for that purpose and would not even exist if long term rental was the only option. Considering that it is next to impossible to evict a long term tenant on this island, long term rentals are just less attractive to many homeowners.
The question is whether we want people in our residential- and AG areas that are “zombie residents.”. They just can’t engage and participate in our communities even if they wanted to. Of course, we have always had them, but the success of short term rental platforms has made the scenario so much more affordable and attractive. We should direct such people to buy in resort zones, so that they don’t use outside money earned in higher income areas (SF Bay Area, Seattle, etc) to compete with local, lower income residents for buying a residential lot.
Exactly. We want our neighborhoods to be actual neighborhoods, where we know our neighbors and can build relationship with them.
If a person built a vacation rental expressly for that purpose, and didn’t bother to research whether or not it was legal to operate that vacation rental where they built it, then they really have no leg to stand on.
Vacation rentals are not currently illegal even though you like to say they are. Bill 108 would make some of them illegal though.
If renting to long-term tenants isn’t “attractive,” and the house is not located in an area zoned for tourist accommodations, then they should simply not rent it, rather than breaking the law.
The point is that this Bill’s proponents argue that this is a solution to making more long term housing available. It’s not.
Mahalo, Alex.
I agree there seems to be no factual evidence around growth 10,000 listings.
Further if somebody looks at the calendars on so many AirBnB and VRBO listings you would find them mostly empty. Just because somebody posts a listing doesn’t mean they are actually actively renting the home. At least half are in this category. There are in fact many duplicate listings. It is important to think about who are the families who stay in these homes. There are definitely locals that enjoy “staycations” or host their families when they visit but most rentals are to people who fly into the Big Island from around the world. The airlines have increased flights but the number of incremental flights/seats do not support that kind of growth suggested. These increased number of visitors also create growth in our economy, creating jobs in so many sectors. Families staying in vacation rentals spend money on activities, groceries, at local farmer markets, in retail. Guests have high expectations of the homes they stay at which leads to the properties being better maintained (housekeeping, landscaping, handypeople jobs). Having these jobs created throughout the island rather than in just a small geography is means that families don’t have to commute as far to find work. There really needs to be a holistic view on this topic that seems to have been missing.
The occupancy rates are: 1,744 71%
582 70%
449 61%
423 54%
332 67%
245 64%
224 61%
367 65%
Now those numbers really don’t make any sense. What time interval? A week, a month or a year? AirBnB and VRBO both show all past dates blocked off so there is no way of looking historically. If you are looking forward in time very few bookings would already be 54%-71% booked for any length of time beyond the next 30 days. Also how are you distinguishing between calendars that are blocked for owner personal time vs guests renting their home.
Jeff, yes, I should have mentioned the interval: Last 12 months. It is based on software that checks every listing on three booking sites every day, pretending to be a human web user. So I can track change of each listing over time. The past two months, occupancy rate is actually higher, close to 80-90%. Almost 100% in Kealakekua and Volcano. For some reason, there are a lot more visitors on the island. New daily flights from Japan and the many flights United added last year seem to make a difference.
Thanks for your comment, Keaaukeli. Love that image of the shorebreak. Nothing against tourists… I am a tourist myself several weeks a year, but I also like living in a single family neighborhood with real neighbors, and we are rapidly loosing ours. I was asked to do a study of the vacation rental activity on our island and, to my own big surprise, I am finding that we are on the verge of loosing many residential communities, not just Leleiwi and typical tourist areas like Volcano Village. In some areas, as much as 30%-40% of houses have been “converted” permanently. New lots in Kona Palisades are being swept up three at a time. “Luxury tent” villages are popping up on Ag lots in Puna and then I found a whole little Balinese resort hidden away on a single family lot in the middle of Puako Beach Road. In our area we found that only two “Big Time operators” — individuals with capital brought in from outside — have bought up 20% of the properties, rent out at $300-400/night/lot, and have the audacity to start constructing small hotels. While the majority of our vacation renting neighbors rent out only one house or appartment, actually live onsite, and end up making only a little money. That does not seem fair. The rental model exemplified by AirBnB & Co. is unprecedented. Therefore our state and county are not obligated to smooth the way for commercial operators of this type.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d51b522a4eed0b2803b816cad6a45eade7c0d69fefeef0841107a8c53728d85.jpg
(Click on link above to see map.) The short-term rental explosion in Volcano Village which is mostly single-family residential (grey shaded zones of my map). Small green pin = host offering a room, red small pin = renting a whole room, big red pin = same host rents multiple entire houses or appartments. Little “bed” symbol = approved B&B
Are you able to indicate homes without rentals for comparison? I don’t disagree that some neighborhoods are losing their character due to a lack of neighbors. Eventually eliminating all transient vacation rentals from all but wealthy resort areas on Kona side (as Bill 108 ultimately does) is not a band aid solution. It is a nuclear option.
Great suggestion on comparing the homes with listings. I will work on that and publish. For Volcano, a quick check shows it is probably not going to be many homes that are still short term rental free. In my own area, Keaukaha, 15 out of 39 of houses are “converted”. One commercially minded host from Southern California is renting out four entire houses on four separate lots. He also purchased 2 lots in Hawaiian beaches.
The bill should include all the other areas where vacation rentals are currently allowed, which includes various types of commercial and mixed use zoning. Just keep them out of our residential and agricultural neighborhoods!