The other morning, I played with some online tools that allow the public to find, analyze, and acquire short-term rental (STR) investments.
Rabbu’s AirBNB Calculator, Property Acquisition, and Property Management (Market Data) tools are free and useful tools.
For example, “Instant Projections – Free AirBNB Data for 81147, CO” reveals 161 active hosts (that advertise on AirBNB) who are actively listing 301 STR units. In our hyper-local real estate market, STR hosts — for the next 30 days — hope to achieve a 38% Average Occupancy Rate (AOR).
It would be very helpful if the County’s STR Task Force, BOCC, and County Manager would provide the public with an online STR map which tax payers could use to inspect STR density, and provide feedback on STR properties inadvertently missing from the Archuleta County STR data base. In order for a publicly available map to be free and useful, the map would need to include both permitted STR units, and STR units (under review) that have been identified as possibly operating as an illegal STR unit.
STR Task Force Phase I Report (page 5) noted “in an effort of transparency, the TF would like the data to be published publicly”. Further, page 7 notes that new software (implemented in April 2020) is able to identify non-permitted STR properties. However, in the past, “very little has been done to ensure compliance of non-permitted STR properties.”
It’s good to know that during Phase II, the TF will be meeting regularly to go over data collected, and analyze the effectiveness of the new policies and recommendations. It seems like common sense that our BOCC, the County Manager, the Task Force, and tax payers would all benefit from public feedback on the accuracy of the data (permitted STRs, and under-review non-permitted
STRs) as displayed to the public within an online, public STR map.
I look forward to using Rabbu, AirDNA, Zillow, and other tools to better understand how many STR units exists, and whether a “natural adjustment to the market” (per County Manager Derek Woodman) is happening as evidenced by STR units converting to long-term rental inventory, and STR units getting sold (at reduced prices) to local residents in urgent need of housing that is more in line with what local wage incomes can support.
If a natural adjustment is not happening, it would be helpful in a year if our BOCC, County Manager, and STR Task Force would please come up with some appropriate policies, recommendations, and rules.
Until then, I hope our elected representatives and their task force(s) will let the public know if an online STR map will become available for Archuleta County and Town taxpayers to use.