Is it time for San Bernardino county to stop issuing new STVR permits?

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

Our second home is in Yucca Valley. We short term rent it when we’re not there.. We had a good first and second year, however 2023 has been awful. Virtually no bookings all through the summer, and now into the fall. It seems new Airbnbs open up every day still. I am also, seeing a lot of them up for sale on Redfin.

Los Angeles County only allows one short term rental and it has to be a primary residence, and you can only book it for 160 days a year. My daughter lives in Paris and is allowed only one stvr with 120 day rental limit. In San Bernardino county it appears you can have as many properties as you want and no limit on days rented. Also, the difference in permit prices is enormous $900 in San Bernardino county versus $190 in Los Angeles county and $0 in Paris. many cities only allow 10% of their housing to be short term rentals. Seems well beyond that in San Bernardino county. You would think that my cleaning crew would be busy in the area, but they’re not. I think the market being flooded is the number one issue. Any thoughts on this? And, I don’t know if it’s related, but every time Airbnb does an app update, our business falls off. Is it us?

[Danlee1]

for over a month, during the update, my bookings went down significantly and I did daily searches for my property, which often was not showing up at all! I’m afraid Airbnb has just gotten too big. Customer Support used to be amazing and now it is barely helpful at all. It is very disappointing. I, personally, did not find the recent update helpful in any way and it definitely caused me a lot of lost business. 

[Zheng49]

They removed the superhost search filter in the last update so it affects all superhosts negatively.

Even if all your properties are 'Guest Favorite' a superhost would still lose out because now anyone can have guest favorite properties. 

Superhost support is still pretty good though, make sure you're going through superhost support and not the regular support. 

[Danlee1]

Unfortunately, I have not found  Superhost Support to be helpful. 😞

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

Not only that, but your rating doesn’t seem to matter in searches. We are as close to perfect as you can get. With over 150 5 star reviews and an average of 4.98 overall, but I always see listings with nowhere near our rating in front of us in the search engine. I brought this up to Customer Support. He thought it was a good idea. Duh.

I asked him why am I working so hard for a good rating when it doesn’t benefit me at all in your search algorithm? Silence. 

[Zheng49]

I think the search algorithm is not based purely on reviews alone.

The pricing is a huge factor, because when I adjust pricing it can easily go from 2nd page to 1st page. They probably also take into account how often it's booked; for example if your property is consistently booked, then it will show up higher in the search results as well. 

Oh forgot to mention, but location is also a BIG BIG factor. If a guest searches for 'Yucca Valley' then your listing would be listed higher than if they searched for somewhere else. 

Also, here is a guess but I think easy access to public transit and other points of interest also gets picked up by the search algorithm somehow. 

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

https://airbnb.com/h/rancho-moco

We have five star ratings in every category. I appreciate the feedback, but I’ve done everything suggested in these threads.  

I feel our area is over saturated with short-term rentals. To the point where I’m seeing many of them for sale on Redfin. I think San Bernardino County needs to stop issuing new permits. They’ve done that in Nashville and other large cities around the world. It’s time. There are plenty of properties being sold with STVR Permits. We don’t need anymore. My wife and I are fine, but ..

What I see is the amount of reviews a listing has seems relevant to the algorithm. Also, if you’re a new listing you get pushed to the top.

We happen to be in the middle at 3 years. I design websites, or did before I retired. This is what I’m noticing.

I think the higher rated properties should be at the top always. That’s just good business. And thank you. I appreciate the feedback.

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

It’s happened to us as well. Directly related to the app update. We were delisted. Just a glitch that cost us thousands of dollars

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Frank-and-Melonie0 Clearly you don't believe in free market economics. 'State' control of permits feels a really bad idea to me and it would be a significant restraint of trade on many folks. The market will self correct as people find they can't make money in STR. I am also surprised you are complaining about the $900 fee in your county - Surely the higher the better to deter hosts which is  what you are advocating for.

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

Hmm. I was hoping to get some feedback from an Airbnb host in San Bernardino County. As someone who doesn’t even live in our country I don’t feel you have ‘any’ perspective. But, of course, when you join a public forum, someone’s going to try to school you for something. Right?

I have no problem with capitalism, why would you assume that.  San Bernardino county appears to be in it for the permit money. 

Considering there is no permit cost in London, if you’re renting out the home you live in, and you can only rent for 90 days in London. It does seem you have more regulations than we do. 

What is this, Twitter?

[Sam4112 · Accepted solution]

I'm an Airbnb host in the same area as you. I believe issuing multiple permits to one owner (or management company) is having an extremely detrimental effect on the local community and on regular Airbnb hosts.

A company called "Hideaway" purchased the rundown house next to us and spent the last 6 months remodeling. There have been an endless stream of trucks and workers, it seemed like a different crew every week, incredibly disrespectful working before and after allowable hours and leaving mountains of trash to blow all over the neighbors' yards.

Throughout the remodel, there was no "owner" or responsible party I could talk to about any concerns. Just a construction foreman who was rarely there, and who never provided any contact info when asked about the owners.

This company rents out 14 different homes in the area, all renovated in the same hideous style, charging between $900-$5,000 a night. They put 2 beds in every bedroom to maximize the capacity for these generic party houses.

If we're going to have a permit process and the county is going to take money to oversee the STR landscape, this is precisely the sort of neighborhood destroying behavior that should be disallowed. It would be a simple enough thing to reign in these corporate STR monopolies by limiting the number of properties a single person or entity can own/manage.

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

Exactly Sam. Please contact me. **  I would love to discuss this further. -Frank

**[Link removed - Community Center Guidelines ]

[John5097]

@Frank-and-Melonie0 

This is happening everywhere for a while. This article cites some data that rates fall in areas that are oversaturated and no regulations. 

https://time.com/6223185/airbnbs-empty-short-term-rentals/#

Airbnb stock valuations are also impacted by the same trend of lower nightly rates because too much supply. 

California municipalities  had some of the first STR regulations that other cites copied as they had gone though legal challenges. 

Im not in your area but a local beach town just passed a referendum limiting the number of STR permits. This was on their ballot and voters approved it. This is always controversial and differing opinions. 

Our city created a STR Task Force that hired legal consultants and urban planning experts on the subject from all over the country. They mostly citied existing regulations in CA and Hawaii. At one point over 90% of all residential houses in parts of HI were STR and most of them owned by huge hotel chains that bought up hundreds or thousands of houses.

Sorry for blabbering but most people don't understand the consequences in very popular tourist areas. If people don't want to deal with zoning and ordinances they shouldn't move to a popular city on the coast.

I guess you could look into trying to get someone on the ballot to limit the number of permits. 

[Helen3]

If you only wanted to hear from hosts in your community why didn't you just post in your local host group NOT on an international community for hosts and guests 🙂

@Frank-and-Melonie0 

And to be helpful London is just a small part of the UK there are different STR regulations in different parts of country and none in others.

[Frank-and-Melonie0]

I didn’t see that option. I’ve never done this before. I appreciate your understanding. I am hearing from hosts in my area. Sorry if this was bothersome.