If the owner of the property doesn’t live in the property any time of the year, it’s not a “BNB” — it’s a hotel. And it should be subject to the same zoning, fees, taxes, and regulations as other hotels.
Glad to see the hotel industry is slowly figuring this out.
Short term rentals have gone completely out of the realm of someone renting their spare bedroom or house for a few days a year, and turned into crowd sourced hotels. There are whole apartment complexes now that just stand empty except on vacation weekends.
Look up Mint House and Natiivo, then take a walk down Haskell at Comal and see the rows of dwellings empty and prepped for guests. This is real urban decay, eroding the fabric of our neighborhoods. No one will be left for the schools and neighbors except bachelor/ette parties.
http://insideairbnb.com/austin/
The data here is not 100% reliable but gives you an idea of the problem.
I’ve been saying for years we should have a “residence for residents” initiative that would include an escalating premium on property taxes for vacant properties where “vacant” means “occupied fewer than 183 days a year.”
It would make the short-term rental market much less profitable, especially after the property tax is 15% three years in. It would make holding residential property vacant (a tactic by hedge funds to drive up rent values) unsustainable. It would also make having a pied-a-terre in Austin less attractive for the ultra-rich.