To Eectively Regulating Short-term
Rentals on the Local Government Level
A Practical Guide
2
A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Meteoric Rise of “Home-Sharing” and Short-Term Rentals 3
Why Regulate Home-Sharing and Short-Term Rentals in the First Place? 4
Start with Explicit Policy Objectives! 5
Only adopt policy requirements that can and will be enforced! 8
Keep it simple! 9
Viable Regulatory Approaches to Managing Short-Term Rentals 9
Best Practices for Enforcing Short-Term Rental Regulation 14
Conclusion 16
About the Author 16
Eective Short-Term Rentals Regulations Start with Explicit Policy
Objectives and a Clear Understanding of What Regulatory Requirements
Can Be Enforced
5
Example A: List of short-term rental policy objectives for an auent
residential Community in attractive location
6
Example B: List of short-term rental policy objectives for an urban
community with a shortage of aordable housing
7
Example C: List of short-term rental policy objectives for a working-class
suburban community with ample housing availability and a struggling downtown
7
Example D: List of short-term rental policy objectives for a beach town with a
large stock of traditional vacation rental
8
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Introduction: The meteoric rise of
“home-sharing” and short-term rentals
Sharing our homes has been commonplace for as long as there have been
spare rooms and comfortable couches. Whether through word of mouth, ads in
newspapers or flyers on community bulletin boards, renters and homeowners alike
have always managed to rent out or share rooms in their living spaces. Traditionally
these transactions were decidedly analog, local and limited in nature, but with
advance of the internet and websites such as Airbnb.com and HomeAway.com it
has suddenly become possible for people to advertise and rent out their homes
and spare bedrooms to complete strangers from far-away with a few mouse-
clicks or taps on a smartphone screen. As a result, the number of homes listed for
short-term rent has grown to about 4 million, a 10 fold increase over the last 5
years. With this rapid growth, many communities across the country are for the first
time experiencing the many positive and negative consequences of an increased
volume of “strangers” in residential communities. While some of these consequences
are arguably positive (increased business for local merchants catering to the
tourists etc.) there are also many potential issues and negative side-eects that
local government leaders may want to try to mitigate by adopting sensible and
enforceable regulation.
How to eectively regulate home-sharing and short-term rentals has therefore
suddenly become one of the hottest topics among local government leaders across
the country. In fact, at the recent National League of Cities conference in Nashville,
TN, there were more presentations and work sessions dedicated to this topic than
to any other topic. Yet, despite more than 32,000 news articles written on the topic
in recent years¹ , surprisingly little has been written on how to implement simple,
sensible and enforceable local policies that appropriately balances the rights of
homeowners with the interests of neighbors and other community members who
may only experience the negative side-eects associated with people renting out
their homes on a shortterm basis. This guide seeks to address this knowledge gap
and oer practical advice and concrete examples of short-term rental regulation
that actually works.
4
A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Why regulate home-sharing and short-term
rentals in the first place?
There are many good reasons why local government leaders are focused on finding
ways to manage the rapid growth of home-sharing and short-term rental properties
in their communities. To name a few:
1. Increased tourist trac from short-term renters has the potential to slowly transform
peaceful residential communities into “communities of transients” where people are
less interested in investing in one another’s lives, be it in the form of informal friend
groups or church, school and other community based organizations.
2. Short-term renters may not always know (or follow) local rules, resulting in public
safety risks, noise issues, trash and parking problems for nearby residents.
3. So-called “party houses” i.e. homes that are continuously rented to larger groups
of people with the intent to party can severely impact neighbors and drive down
nearby home values.
4. Conversion of residential units into short-term rentals can result in less availability of
aordable housing options and higher rents for long-term renters in the community.
5. Local service jobs can be jeopardized as unfair competition from unregulated and
untaxed short-term rentals reduces demand for local bed & breakfasts, hotels and
motels.
6. Towns often lose out on tax revenue (most often referred to as Transient Occupancy
Tax / Hotel Tax / Bed Tax or Transaction Privilege Tax) as most short-term landlords
fail to remit those taxes even if it is required by law.
7. Lack of proper regulation or limited enforcement of existing ordinances may cause
tension or hostility between short-term landlords and their neighbors.
5
A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
8. The existence of “pseudo hotels” in residential neighborhoods (often in violation of
local zoning ordinances etc.) may lead to disillusionment with local government
ocials who may be perceived as ineective in protecting the interests of local tax-
paying citizens.
In short, while it may be very lucrative for private citizens to become part-time
innkeepers, most of the negative externalities are borne by the neighbors and
surrounding community who may not be getting much in return. The big questions is
therefore not whether it makes sense to regulate short-term rentals, but how to do it to
preserve as many of the benefits as possible without turning neighbors and other local
community members into “innocent bystanders”. In the next sections we will explore
how to actually do this in practice.
Eective short-term rentals regulation
starts with explicit policy objectives and
a clear understanding of what regulatory
requirements can be enforced
As with most regulation enacted on the local level, there is no “one size fits all”
regulatory approach that will work for all communities. Instead local regulation
should be adapted to fit the local circumstances and policy objectives while
explicitly factoring in that any regulation is only worth the paper it is written on if it
can be enforced in a practical and cost-eective manner.
Start with explicit policy objectives!
As famously stated in Alice in Wonderland: “If you don't know where you are
going, any road will get you there.” The same can be said about short-term rental
regulation, and unfortunately many town and city councils end up regulating the
practice without first thinking through the community’s larger strategic objectives
and exactly which of the potential negative side eects
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
As an example, the Town of Tiburon in California recently passed a total ban of short-
term rentals without thinking through the severely negative impact of such regulation
on its stated strategic policy objective of revitalizing its downtown. Likewise the City of
Mill Valley, California recently adopted an ordinance requiring short-term landlords to
register with the city, while failing to put in place an eective mechanism to shut-down
“party-houses” although there had been several complaints about such properties
in the past. Such oversight was clearly unintentional but highlights the fact that the
topic of regulating short-term rentals is extremely complicated and it is easy to miss
the forest for the trees when it comes time to actually writing the local code. To avoid
this pitfall, local government leaders should therefore first agree on a specific list of
goals that the new short-term rental regulation should accomplish before discussing
any of the technical details of how to write and implement the new regulation. Any
draft regulation should be evaluated against these specific goals and only code
requirements that are specifically designed to address any of those concrete goals
should be included in the final ordinance. Below are a few concrete examples of what
such lists of concrete policy objective could look like for various types of communities:
Example A: List of short-term rental policy objectives for an auent
residential community in attractive location
• Ensure that traditional residential neighborhoods are not turned into tourist areas to
the detriment of long-time residents
• Ensure any regulation of short-term rentals does not negatively aect property
values (and property tax revenue)
• Ensure that homes are not turned into pseudo hotels or “party houses”
• Minimize public safety risks and the noise, trash and parking problems often
associated with short-term rentals without creating additional work for the local
police department
• Give permanent residents the option to occasionally utilize their properties
to generate extra income from short-term rentals as long as all of the above
mentioned policy objectives are met
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Example B: List of short-term rental policy objectives for an urban
community with a shortage of aordable housing
• Maximize the availability of aordable housing options by ensuring that no long-
term rental properties are converted into short-term rentals
• Ensure that short-term rentals are taxed in the same way as traditional lodging
providers to ensure a level playing field and maintain local
service jobs
• Ensure that the city does not lose out on hotel tax revenue that could be invested in
much needed services for permanent residents
• Minimize public safety risks and the noise, trash and parking problems often
associated with short-term rentals without creating additional work for the local
police department
• Give citizens the option to utilize their properties to generate extra income from
shortterm rentals as long as all of the above mentioned policy objectives are met
Example C: List of short-term rental policy objectives for a workingclass
suburban community with ample housing availability and a struggling
downtown
• Give property owners the option to utilize their properties as short-term rentals to
help them make ends meet
• Encourage additional tourism to drive more business to downtown stores
and restaurants
• Minimize public safety risks and the noise, trash and parking problems often
associated with short-term rentals without creating additional work for the local
police department
• Ensure that the city does not lose out on tax revenue that could be invested in much
needed services for permanent residents
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Example D: List of short-term rental policy objectives for beach town
with a large stock of traditional vacation rentals
• Ensure any regulation of short-term rentals does not negatively aect the value of
second homes (and thereby property tax revenue)
• Encourage increased visitation to local stores and restaurants to increase the overall
availability of services and maximize sales tax collections
• Minimize public safety risks and the noise, trash and parking problems associated
with existing short-term rentals without creating additional work for the local police
department
Once clear and concrete policy objectives have been formulated the next step is to
understand what information can be used for code enforcement purposes, so that the
adopted short-term rental regulation can be enforced in a cost-eective manner.
Only adopt policy requirements that can and will be
enforced!
While it may seem obvious that only enforceable legislation should be adopted, it
is mindboggling how often this simple principle is ignored. To give a few examples,
the two California towns previously mentioned not only failed to adopt regulation
consistent with their overall strategic policy objectives, but also ended up adopting
completely unenforceable rules. In the case of Tiburon, the town council instituted
a complete ban of all short-term rentals within its jurisdiction, but not only failed to
allocate any budget to enforce it, but also failed put in place fines large enough to
deter any violation of the ban. As a result, the number of properties listed for rent has
remained virtually unchanged before and after the ban.
In the case of Mill Valley, the town’s registration requirement turned out to be
completely unenforceable as the town’s personnel had neither the technical expertise,
time nor budget to track down short-term landlords that failed to register. As a
result, the town has had to rely exclusively on self-reporting, and unsurprisingly the
compliance rate has been less than 5%.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
As for local governments that require short-term rental property owners to pay tax to
the local jurisdiction without allocating budget to enforcing such rules, they have found
themselves in similar situations, with compliance rates in the
5% range.
Keep it simple!
Another common mistake is for cities to adopt complicated rules that are hard for
citizens to understand and follow and that require large investments in enforcement.
As an example, despite setting up a dedicated department to enforce its short-term
rental regulation, the City of San Francisco has only achieve a 10-15% compliance
rate as its regulation is so complicated and its registration process so agonizing that
most people give up before even trying to follow the rules. Below is flow-chart that
illustrates San Francisco’s cumbersome short-term rental registration process.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
While hindsight is 20/20, it is worth noting that the registration requirements were
probably wellintended and made logical sense to the council members and sta that
adopted them. The problem was therefore not ill-will but a lack of understanding of
the practical details as to how the various short-term rental websites actual work.
As an example, San Francisco’s short-term rental regulation require that property
owner’s display their permit number on any advertising (including online listings)
whereas Airbnb’s website has built-in functionality that specifically prevents short-term
landlords from doing so and automatically deletes all “permit sounding” information
from the listings in most locations. Likewise, San Francisco’s legislation bans anyone
for renting their homes for more than 90 days per calendar year, while none of the
home-sharing websites give code enforcement ocers the ability to collect the data
necessary to enforce that rule. To make matters worse, the listing websites have
refused to share any property specific data with the local authorities and have even
gone as far as suing the cities that have been asking for such detailed data. Local
government ocials should therefore not assume that the listing websites will be
collaborative when it comes to sharing data that will make it possible for local code
enforcement ocers to monitor compliance with complicated short-term rental
regulation on the property level. Instead, local government leaders should seek to
carefully understand the data limitations before adopting regulation that cannot be
practically enforced. To get a quick overview of what information that can be relied on
for short-term rental compliance monitoring and enforcement purposes, please see
the diagram below that shows which:
1. Data is publicly available on the various home-sharing websites
2. Information that can be uncovered through the deployment of sophisticated “big
data technology and trained experts (or time-consuming and therefore costly
detective work conducted by a town’s own sta)
3. property specific details that are practically impossible to obtain despite significant
investment of time and money
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
So where does that leave local government leaders who want to put in place
enforceable shortterm rental regulation? In the next section we will explore, describe,
and assess the viable regulatory tools available for local government leaders to
eectively address the key issues related to taxation, regulation, social equity and
economic development.
Viable regulatory approaches to managing
short-term rentals
As mentioned earlier, the first step to creating eective short-term rental
regulation is to document and get agreement on a set of clear and concrete policy
objectives. Once this has been accomplished, putting together the actual regulatory
requirements can be simplified by referring to the “cheat sheet” below, which lists
the regulatory levers that can be pulled to accomplish those goals in a practical
and cost-eective manner while factoring in the data limitations highlighted in the
previous section.
Short-term Rental Policy Objectives and the Associated
Viable Regulatory Approaches
Policy Objective
Viable Regulatory
Approach(es)
Unviable Regulatory
Approach(es)
Give law abiding and
respectful citizens the option
to utilize their homes as short-
term rentals
Adopt a formal annual
permitting requirement and a
process for revoking permits
from “trouble properties”.
As an example a local
government can adopt a “3
strikes rule” whereby a permit
is automatically revoked for a
number of years in the event
the local government receives
3 (substantiated) complaints
about a property within a
certain time frame (i.e. a 24
month period). Alternatively,
a local government can adopt
a rule by which a permit is
Failing to clearly specify
what rules law abiding and
respectful shortterm landlords
and their renters must comply
with. Adopting regulation
that does not clearly define
the criteria and process for
revoking a short-term rental
permit.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Ensure that speculators do
not buy up homes to turn
them into pseudo hotels
while still giving permanent
residents the option to utilize
their homes to generate extra
income from short-term
rentals.
Ensure that homes are
only occasionally used as
shortterm rentals (and not
continuously rented out to
new people on a short term
basis).
automatically revoked in
the event the town receives
conclusive evidence (police
report, video evidence etc.)
that a city ordinance has
been violated.
Adopt a formal permit
requirement and make it
a condition that the permit
holder verifies residency on
an annual basis by submitting
the same documentation as
is required to verify residency
for public school attendance
purposes.
It is unfortunately not
practically possible to
enforce any formal limits
on the number of times
or number of days that a
particular property is rented
on an annual/quarterly/
monthly basis, but adopting
a permanent residency
requirement for shortterm
rental permit holders (see
above) can ensure that there
is a practical upper limit to
how often most properties
are rented out each year
(most people can only take a
few weeks of vacation each
year and they are therefore
practically restricted to rent
out their homes for those few
weeks). There is unfortunately
no easy way to deal with the
tiny minority of homes where
the “permanent resident”
owners have the ability to
take extended vacations
and rent out their home
continuously. That said, if the
above mentioned “permanent
residency requirement” is
combined with rules to
Adopting a permitting
process that does not formally
require shortterm rental
permit holders to verify that
they are permanent residents
of the permitted property.
A formal limit on the number
of times or number of
days each property can
be rented on an annual/
quarterly/monthly basis is not
enforceable as occupancy
data is simply not available
without doing a formal audit
of each and every property.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Ensure homes are not turned
into “party houses”.
mitigate noise, parking and
trash related issues, the
potential problems associated
with these few homes should
be manageable. Adopting
a “permanent residency
requirement” also comes with
the additional side benefit
that most people don’t want
to rent out their primary
residence to people who may
trash it or be a nuisance to the
neighbors. The “permanent
residency requirement” can
therefore also help minimize
noise, parking and trash
related issues.
Adopt a formal permit
requirement and put in place
a specific limit on the number
of people that are allowed
to stay on the property at
any given time. The “people
limit” can be the same for
all permitted properties (i.e.
a max of 10 people) or be
correlated with the number
of bedrooms. In addition,
the regulation should
formally specify that any
advertisement of the property
(oine or online) and all
rental contracts must contain
language that specifies the
allowed “people limit” to
make it clear to (potential)
renters that the home cannot
be used for large gatherings.
While not bullet-proof,
adopting these requirements
will deter most abuse. In
addition it is possible to
proactively enforce this rule
as all listing websites require
(or allow) hosts to indicate
their property’s maximum
occupancy on the listings.
Adopting any regulation that
does not clearly define what
types of uses are disallowed
will be ineective and likely
result in misinterpretation
and/or abuse.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Minimize potential parking
problems for the neighbors of
short-term rental properties.
Minimize public safety risks
and possible noise and trash
problems without creating
additional work for the local
police department and code
enforcement personnel.
Adopt a formal permit
requirement and put in
place a specific limit on the
number of motor vehicles
that short-term renters are
allowed to park on/near the
property. The “motor vehicle
limit” can be the same for all
permitted properties (i.e. a
max of 2) or be dependent
on the number of permanent
parking spots available on
the property. In addition,
the regulation should
formally specify that any
advertisement of the property
(oine or online) and any
rental contract must contain
language that specifies the
allowed “motor vehicle limit”
to make it clear to (potential)
renters that bringing more
cars is disallowed. As with
the “people limit” rule
mentioned above, adopting
these parking disclosure
requirements will deter most
abuse. In addition it is easy
to proactively enforce this
rule as most listing websites
require or allow their hosts
to describe their property’s
parking situation on the
listing.
1. Require that all short-
term rental contracts
include a copy of the
local sound/trash/
parking ordinances
and/or a “Good
Neighbor Brochure” that
summarizes the local
sound/trash/parking
ordinances and what is
expected of the renter.
Adopting any regulation that
does not clearly define a
specific limit on the number of
motor vehicles that short-term
renters are allowed to park
on/near the property.
Adopting any regulation and
enforcement processes that
do not explicitly specify how
non-emergency problems
should be reported and
addressed.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Minimize potential parking
problems for the neighbors of
short-term rental properties.
Ensure that no long-term
rental properties are
converted to short-term
rentals to the detriment of
long-term renters in the
community.
2. Require that short-term
rental permit holders
list a “local contact” that
can be reached 24/7
and immediately take
corrective action in the
event any nonemergency
issues are reported (i.e.
deal with suspected
noise, trash or parking
problems).
3. Establish a 24/7 hotline
to allow neighbors
and other citizens
to easily report
nonemergency issues
without involving local
law/code enforcement
ocers. Once notified
of a potential ordinance
violation, the hotline
personnel will contact the
aected property’s “local
contact”, and only involve
the local law and/or code
enforcement personnel in
the event that the “local
contact” is unsuccessful in
remedying the situation
within a reasonable
amount of time (i.e. 20-
30 minutes).
Adopting any regulation that
does not clearly define a
specific limit on the number of
motor vehicles that short-term
renters are allowed to park
on/near the property.
Adopting a permitting
process that does not formally
require short-term rental
permit holders to verify that
they are permanent residents
of the permitted property will
be ineective in preventing
absentee landlords from
converting their longterm
rental properties into short-
term rentals.
Adopt a permanent residency
requirement for short-term
rental permit holders (see
above) to prevent absentee
landlords from converting
long-term rental properties
into short-term rentals.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Ensure that residential
neighborhoods are not
inadvertently turned into
tourist areas to the detriment
of permanent residents.
Ensure any regulation of
short-term rentals does
not negatively aect
property values or create
other unexpected negative
longterm side-eects.
Ensure the physical safety of
short-term renters.
Implement one or both of
the following regulatory
approaches:
1. Adopt a formal permit
requirement and set
specific quotas on the
number of short-term
rental permits allowed in
any given neighborhood,
and/or
2. Adopt the “permanent
residency requirement”
for short-term rental
permit holders
(mentioned above) to
ensure that there is a
practical upper limit to
how often any property is
rented out each year.
Adopt regulation that
automatically expires after a
certain amount of time (i.e.
2-5 years) to ensure that the
rules and processes that are
adopted now are evaluated
as the market and technology
evolves over time.
Adopt a physical safety
inspection requirement as
part of the permit approval
process. The inspection
can be conducted by the
municipality’s own sta or
the local fire/police force and
can cover various amounts
of potential safety hazards.
As minimum such inspection
should ensure that all rentals
provide a minimum level of
protection to the renters who
are sleeping in unfamiliar
surroundings and therefore
may be disadvantaged
if forced to evacuate the
structure in the event of an
emergency.
Adopting a complete ban
on short-term rentals,
unless such a ban is heavily
enforced.
Adopt regulation that does
not contain a catalyst for
evaluating its eectiveness
and sideeects down the line.
Adopting a selfcertification
process that does not involve
an objective 3rd party.
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A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
In addition to the above targeted regulatory measures, local governments should
adopt requirements for short-term rental permit holders to maintain books and
records for a minimum of 3 years so that it is possible to obtain the information
necessary to conduct inspections or audits as required. Finally, it is imperative
that local governments adopt fine structures that adequately incentivizes short-
term andlords to comply with the adopted regulation. Ideally the fines should be
proportionate to the economic gains that potential violators can realize from breaking
the rules, and fines should be ratcheted up for repeat violators. Below is an example
of a fine schedule that will work for most jurisdictions:
1st
Violation
2nd
Violation
3rd
Violation
4th
Violation
Fine for advertising a
property for short-term rent
(online or oine) without first
having obtained a permit or
complying with local listing
requirements.
Fine for violating any
other requirements of the
localmgovernment’s short
term rental regulation.
Notes:
() Any person found to be in violation of this regulation in a civil case brought by a law enforcement agency
shall be ordered to reimburse the local government and other participating law enforcement agencies their
full investigative costs, pay all back-owed taxes, and remit all illegally obtained short-term rental revenue
proceeds to the local government.
() Any unpaid fine will be subject to interest from the date on which the fine became due and payable to the
local government until the date of payment.
() The remedies provided for in this fine schedule are in addition to, and not in lieu of, all other legal remedies,
criminal or civil, which may be pursued by the local government to address any violation or other public
nuisance.
$200 per
day
$250 per
day
$400 per
day
$500 per
day
$650 per
day
$750 per
day
Upon the fourth or
subsequent violation in any
twenty-four mont period,
the local government may
suspend or revoke any permit.
The suspension or revocation
can be appealed.
18
A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Best Practices for Enforcing Short-term
Rental Regulation
To implement any type of eective short-term rental regulation, be it a total ban, a
permitting requirement, and/or a tax, local governments must expect to invest some
level of sta time and/or other resources in compliance monitoring and enforcement.
That said, most local governments are neither technically equipped nor large
enough to build the true expertise and sophisticated software needed to do this cost-
eectively. There are several reasons why this is the case:
1. Rental property listings are spread across dozens (or hundreds) of dierent home
sharing websites, with new sites popping up all the time (Airbnb and HomeAway are
only a small portion of the total market).
2. Manually monitoring 100s or 1,000s of short-term rental properties within a specific
jurisdiction is practically impossible without sophisticated databases as property
listings are constantly added, changed or removed.
3. Address data is hidden from property listings making it time-consuming or
impossible to identify the exact properties and owners based just on the information
available on th home-sharing websites.
4. The listing websites most often disallow property owners from including permit data
on their listings, making it impossible to quickly identify unpermitted properties.
5. There is no manual way to find out how often individual properties are rented and
for how much, and it is therefore very dicult to precisely calculate the amount of
taxes owed by an individual property owner.
Luckily, it is possible to cost-eectively outsource most this work to new innovative
companies such as Host Compliance that specialize in this area and have developed
sophisticated big data technology and deep domain expertise to bring down
the compliance monitoring and code enforcement costs to a minimum. In many
situations, these companies can even take on all the work associated with managing
the enforcement of the short-term rental regulation in return for a percentage of the
incremental permitting fees, tax revenue and fine revenue that they help their local
government partners collect.
19
A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
Adopting short-term rental regulation and outsourcing the administration and
enforcement can therefore be net-revenue positive for the local government, while
adding no or little additional work to the plates of internal sta. What’s more,
getting started generally requires no up-front investment, long-term commitment or
complicated IT integration.
That said, while it is good to know that adopting and enforcing short-term regulation
can be net revenue positive if done in partnership with an expert firm, it is important
to note that the economic benefits are only a small part of the equation and that local
government leaders should also factor in the many non-economic benefits associated
with managing and monitoring the rapidly growing short-term rental industry in their
local communities. These non-economic benefits are often much more important to
the local citizens than the incremental tax revenue, so even if the incremental revenue
numbers may not seem material in the context of a local government’s overall budget,
the problems that unregulated and/or unmonitored short-term rentals can cause
for the neighbors and other “innocent bystanders” can be quite material and should
therefore not be ignored. Or as Jessica C. Neufeld from Austin, TX who suddenly found
herself and her family living next to a “party house” reminds us: “We did not buy our
house to be living next to a hotel. Would you buy a home if you knew a hotel like this
was operating next door, if you wanted to set your life up and raise a family?”².
.
Conclusion
It is the responsibility of local government leaders to ensure that as few people as
possible find themselves in the same unfortunate situation as Jessica and her family.
In this white-paper we have outlined how to make it happen - in a revenue positive
way. To find out more about how we can help your community implement simple,
sensible and enforceable short-term rental regulation, feel free to visit us on
www.hostcompliance.com or call us for a free consultation on (415) 715-9280. We
would also be more than happy to provide you with a complimentary analysis of the
short-term rental landscape in your local government’s jurisdiction and put together
an estimate of the revenue potential associated with adopting (or more actively
enforcing) short-term rental regulation in your community.
20
A Practical Guide to Eectively Regulating Short-Term Rentals
About the Author
Ulrik Binzer founded Host Compliance LLC (now Granicus), the industry leader in short-
term rental compliance monitoring and enforcement solutions for local governments. Ulrik
got the idea to found Host Compliance when he was serving on a committee appointed
by his local town council to study possible ways to regulate short-term rentals in the local
community. In preparation for his work on the committee, Ulrik spent countless hours
researching how other municipalities had approached the regulation of short-term rentals,
and it became evident that enforcing the regulations and collecting the appropriate taxes
without the support of sophisticated technology was virtually impossible. As a result, Ulrik
set out to build those tools and make them available to municipalities of all sizes at a
fraction of the cost of what it would cost them to build and run such technology internally.
Prior to founding Host Compliance, Ulrik served as Chief Operating Ocer of Work4 Labs -
an 80 person Venture Capital backed technology company with oces in Silicon Valley and
Europe, and Soligent Distribution LLC - the largest distributor of solar equipment to local
governments and businesses in the Americas.
Before assuming executive management roles in technology companies, Ulrik served as
Vice President of the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital, as a strategy consultant
at McKinsey & Company and as an Ocer in the Danish Army where he commanded
a 42-person Platoon and graduated first in his class from the Danish Army’s Lieutenant
School.
Ulrik received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School where he was as a Baker Scholar
(top 5% of his class) and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in International Business
from Copenhagen Business School and New York University.
Ulrik can be contacted on (415) 715-9280 or ulrik.binzer@granicus.com.
¹ Google News accessed on 1/5/2016
²New York Times article: "New Worry for Home Buyers: A Party House Next Door", October 10, 2015