I think there are a lot of unintended consequences associated with your hammer. I also don't think what I proposed is light. A property tax on all stocks would be huge, and it would be a big deal for the biggest stockholders.
That's looks like a great deal from my side of the country.
515 Hannah St, Boyne City, MI 49712 | Zillow
515 Hannah St, Boyne City MI, is a Single Family home that contains 864 sq ft and was built in 1970.It contains 1 bathroom. The Zestimate for this Single Family is $220,300, which has increased by $813 in the last 30 days.The Rent Zestimate for this Single Family is $1,432/mo, which has...www.zillow.com
864sq ft for $255k? Get out of here with that. And being near a lake in Michigan is standard with Michigan homes. I get that realtors talk it up but in Michigan, you're never more than 6 miles from a lake no matter were you are. In Northern Michigan, it's like 2 miles.
Doesn't Michigan still have some of the lowest home prices in the US, though? Not just in the obvious places like Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw, but even in high-income Oakland County, middle class homes are only $200-300k? While that same house would be pushing a million dollars in most parts of NJ.I know that the quickest way to fix the housing problem near me would be to require any short-term rental property to be zoned commercial, which it should be since you're just operating a hotel in the guise of a house. Short-term rentals have absolutely ruined being able to live in Northern Michigan. There are a ton of properties for rent, but the lease is only from October to April. After that, you can only rent it for a week at a time (which costs as much as one month's rent). Like how do you expect to attract people to work in your area if they can't get a place to live? I get wanting to be a landlord and if that's something you want to do, then go for it, but be a landlord, don't be a half-assed hotel manager.
What's amusing though is that almost every politician in Northern Michigan complains about not being able to grow the economy or even get workers, but then they turn around and OK short-term rentals along with only allowing insanely expensive condos while axing any plans for affordable housing.
Even the affordable housing is shady around here too. A new neighborhood went up where you can get a new 1,300 sq ft home for around $160k, which is great. However, what they don't tell you is that you only own the house, not the land it sits on, and have to pay lot rent. Lot rent is $700 a month, which is insane because property taxes wouldn't even be close to $8,400 a year. You all need to pay an HOA fee to cover snow removal and stuff like that too. So yes the house is affordable, but everything else tacked on makes it unaffordable.
All I want is a house that's at least 1,000 sq ft for less than $200k, which should be doable because up until COVID, houses like that were routinely $120k around here. I get the market has gone up but this is the kind of stuff you get around here:
515 Hannah St, Boyne City, MI 49712 | Zillow
515 Hannah St, Boyne City MI, is a Single Family home that contains 864 sq ft and was built in 1970.It contains 1 bathroom. The Zestimate for this Single Family is $220,300, which has increased by $813 in the last 30 days.The Rent Zestimate for this Single Family is $1,432/mo, which has...
864sq ft for $255k? Get out of here with that. And being near a lake in Michigan is standard with Michigan homes. I get that realtors talk it up but in Michigan, you're never more than 6 miles from a lake no matter were you are. In Northern Michigan, it's like 2 miles.
Average income of NJ is about 10k more than Michigan and roughly 150k more for housing prices. 291k vs 450k. There’s plenty of 750k-million dollar houses in lower income cities in Michigan. Housing prices are ridiculous right now.
Hold my beerThat's looks like a great deal from my side of the country.
View attachment 134845620 Freshmeadow Dr, Onset, MA 02558 | realtor.com®
See photos and price history of this 1 bed, 1 bath, 426 Sq. Ft. recently sold home located at 20 Freshmeadow Dr, Onset, MA 02558 that was sold on 04/26/2024 for $180000.www.realtor.com
Location, location,
You'd have to ban the concept of deferred compensation. Deferred compensation has gained a huge foothold in recent years - my company does it now, tons of others do, and Shohei Ohtani has now brought the issue to the legislative floor by having hundreds of millions of deferred compensation in his contract. It's robbery because it's allowing the companies to invest that earmarked money, benefit from the dividends, not pay any of those dividends to the employee, avoid increasing growable benefits like 401k contributions, and ultimately pay the employee a deflated amount of money that was promised years ago.
Now we're talking.
Now we're not talking. My industry no longer requires college degrees to achieve a highly skilled and highly compensated career. There are quite a few pilots out there who are achieving their ratings without college or military assistance and you want them to be doing physical labor which isn't relevant to their career goals? The type of training in my industry requires flexible schedules and mindfulness of rest and fatigue levels so dealing with laborious jobs causes more problems for those individuals. And if you force more people into college, that just exacerbates that racket even further. That's just one example of how this will be problematic.
I've got the same issue in my neighborhood and it has caused at least one call to police. I live very close to downtown Dayton and I'm actually looking at a permanent Air BnB across the street from me right now. Nice house to be fair, two car detatched garage and fenced in yard, built in the early 00s, lovely front porch. But it's mostly empty, only occupied a few times a month, and it makes it tough for us neighborhood folks to keep track of who is coming and going. All the time there are unknown cars parked in front of my house or across the street. I also had to call the cops on a group of drunk bastards who got into a shouting match in the middle of the street at midnight last year.I know that the quickest way to fix the housing problem near me would be to require any short-term rental property to be zoned commercial, which it should be since you're just operating a hotel in the guise of a house. Short-term rentals have absolutely ruined being able to live in Northern Michigan. There are a ton of properties for rent, but the lease is only from October to April. After that, you can only rent it for a week at a time (which costs as much as one month's rent). Like how do you expect to attract people to work in your area if they can't get a place to live? I get wanting to be a landlord and if that's something you want to do, then go for it, but be a landlord, don't be a half-assed hotel manager.
What's amusing though is that almost every politician in Northern Michigan complains about not being able to grow the economy or even get workers, but then they turn around and OK short-term rentals along with only allowing insanely expensive condos while axing any plans for affordable housing.
Even the affordable housing is shady around here too. A new neighborhood went up where you can get a new 1,300 sq ft home for around $160k, which is great. However, what they don't tell you is that you only own the house, not the land it sits on, and have to pay lot rent. Lot rent is $700 a month, which is insane because property taxes wouldn't even be close to $8,400 a year. You all need to pay an HOA fee to cover snow removal and stuff like that too. So yes the house is affordable, but everything else tacked on makes it unaffordable.
All I want is a house that's at least 1,000 sq ft for less than $200k, which should be doable because up until COVID, houses like that were routinely $120k around here. I get the market has gone up but this is the kind of stuff you get around here:
515 Hannah St, Boyne City, MI 49712 | Zillow
515 Hannah St, Boyne City MI, is a Single Family home that contains 864 sq ft and was built in 1970.It contains 1 bathroom. The Zestimate for this Single Family is $220,300, which has increased by $813 in the last 30 days.The Rent Zestimate for this Single Family is $1,432/mo, which has...
864sq ft for $255k? Get out of here with that. And being near a lake in Michigan is standard with Michigan homes. I get that realtors talk it up but in Michigan, you're never more than 6 miles from a lake no matter were you are. In Northern Michigan, it's like 2 miles.
One problem with the people who operate STRs is mindset. They own and operate the houses in a neighborhood with a business mindset rather than a home mindset, very different from the people who actually live there. They typically don't live in the neighborhood or even anywhere near it, they aren't passionate about the neighborhood, they don't monitor activity in the neighborhood, and they're not present to influence the quality of community in the neighborhood. For example when my house was renovated it was intended to be sold as a rental. The seller was frustrated with me that I was an individual buyer with an FHA loan rather than an investor, and they attempted to jockey me in multiple ways. A homeowner selling to a prospective homeowner is much less likely to act like a business selling to a business. Somebody selling their Air BnB likely doesn't give a damn who buys it, whereas homeowners have a bit more ability to pick and choose their type of buyer. Dayton is currently plagued by corporate property investors who are buying properties with inflated offers, many of which will be turned into various types of rentals, robbing locals of permanent homes and jacking up the entire market.
Businesses are not the only purchases or owners of STRs. Many owners personally spend time in their STRs but don't use it as their primary residence. In one Colorado vacation town near me, there is a neighborhood with an HOA run entirely by owners who almost exclusively use their home as an STR, and yet they remain involved in the neighborhood, investing in it so that it maintains its beauty and functionality. Many of them care more about their STR than their primary residence. So your generalization is not appropriate to the concept of an STR.
While they don't have the right to a permanent home, if an area wants to have a functioning economy, it needs people living there. By allowing all the homes to be bought up by non-locals, you're effectively ruining any growth potential and kneecapping the economy. If people can't live a reasonable distance from where they work, they likely will find a different job. We constantly have politicians bitching in Northern Michigan that the "small town is dying" yet no one who works there can live within 30 miles of it. If the small town dies, then so does the tourism, which then completely negates the point of STR. There needs to be a better balance, which is why I think STR should be operated like a business instead of a residence. If you live there X% of the time, then sure, treat it like a residence, but if you don't meet that criteria then it's a business property.
"Non-locals" is an interesting assumption. "All the homes" is another interesting way to put it.
...and that affects the pay of the job as well as the desirability of the area - which in turn affects the desirability of an STR in the area.
Politicians spout feel-good sound-bite nonsense like this all the time. Don't take it as an indication that the small town is dying, or needs to be saved, or can be in a reasonable way.
That seems balancing actually.
It sounds simplistically like it could make sense. But I think there are a number of problems with this line of thinking. Let's start by considering a long term rental, and whether you think if a home is rented for a longer term, like a year, that it should be regulated as a business.
When the owners live several hundred miles away in the Detroit or Grand Rapids area, I would consider them non-locals. And all the homes are being bought up. We're currently looking for a home, we went and looked at one the other day that was listed that morning. We went as soon as our realtor could get an appointment. We were outbid by someone who lives in Grand Rapids who bought it sight unseen. That is happening all the time to people attempting to buy a house.
The biggest pull for STR here is downstate people and middle to high-income people from Chicago wanting to "get away". The area is going to be desirable until climate change ruins it since it has water, sand, and forests. Even the crappiest little communities that are fueled entirely by meth have the desirability due to outdoor recreation like snowmobiling and hunting.
It is, but at what cost? You're going to end up with a bunch of unemployed people who can't afford their homes because they can't find work. I agree there's a balance, but I don't think completely destroying something is the way to achieve that balance. As I said, something as simple as allowing apartment buildings would help significantly. They could also allow the biggest employer (Boyne Mountain Ski/Golf Resort) to actually go through with building employee housing like it wants to. The company wants to construct a big apartment complex on a parcel of land it owns to support its workforce, yet the politicians have shot it down over and over again for one reason or another.
Long term rentals are a business, but are typically treated like one. Apartment complexes are owned and operated by property management companies, as are many rental homes. It's a valid industry that fills a need for a community since it provides a home for people who want/need to live there but can't afford/don't want the upkeep of a house.
What about the person across the street who owns an STR?
This doesn't seem like a complaint about STRs.
It doesn't have to be so dramatic. prices don't have to come down all at once, and people don't all have to leave at once. This isn't a binary situation.
Individual owners also rent their houses out long term. It's not just companies that have long term rentals. So if I rent my house out for a year, should I be considered a business? Does my house need to be zoned commercial? It has none of the problems you're complaining about. It's still housing for "locals".
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by property management companies since individually owned STRs also often use property management companies to handle the bookings/cleanings/maintenance. A property management company may have a portfolio partly of properties owned by the management company and mostly by individuals who need a manager for their property. I can think of some examples of management companies that do this locally.
It's definitely a complex issue and it's shortsighted to judge based on a few experiences. Like you mentioned, the STR across the street from me is well-maintained presumably because it wants to be attractive to customers. I have no idea if the suburban-like mindset of pride and/or avoiding shame is one of their motivations but from a business standpoint that doesn't have to be a reason at all. Like guests in a hotel, the guests at the STR don't really have either of those motivations to be civil, as several guests have displayed.
Complaints about renters are real, not just for STRs but long term renters as well. But then again, complaints about neighbors are real. The only people I've had come to me at my property and shout profanities at me were local owners who were on the HOA and as invested as they could possibly be.
There are likely some up here, but they are not a majority by any means, especially given the median income.
It is when there are so many STRs without the ability to expand the market for homes. STRs wouldn't be an issue if people could actually live here and politicians allowed for adequate housing to be built, but then don't and when they do approve new housing, it's something like this:
www.zillow.com
I don't know; if it were a larger area, I would agree that it wouldn't be a dramatic shift. But the area is small and we're a long distance from anything remotely considered a city where a large number of people could work. It might not be like an on/off switch, but I think the collapse would take months instead of years if/when it happens. e
You should probably be a business, but the home is clearly a residence since people live there. It should be a commercial business if people aren't staying there for any length of time since then it's just like a hotel. If you want a completely arbitrary number to assign to it, I'd say anything less than 90 days should be considered an STR and should be commercial.
Many of the people who own STR in this area are just people who bought them and rent them online through a third party website. They don't have a company managing it at all and just call a cleaning service to come to the house after someone leaves. They aren't even a company themselves, they're just someone who owns multiple properties as an individual.
One of the property managers that I know in a mountain town near me lives across the street from a property she manages for someone who lives in Denver, and next to a property she manages for herself. I wouldn't discount that owners and managers may be right next door.
Sounds like a complaint about local government.
I'm not sure why you're playing both answers here. If I rent my house out long term (a year) I should be a business, but not really unless I rent it out for less than 90 days? What is the impulse that it is more commercial if the rental term is shorter?
Maybe that's what we should be talking about instead of banning TikTok because it's Chinese and we're afraid of that. If there's something nefarious within the app, it needs to be shown, and THAT's what we should be talking about.
It could be classified. There is a lot of concern in the military community about China is general, literally everything across the board concerning China. They won't talk about specifics but old concepts like "keep your enemies closer" and "never underestimate" summarize their attitudes. Considerably more concern and resources are being put toward China than Russia for example.
This isn't really true. Like most of these apps, access is severely limited on all devices until you're a vetted member. I often have difficulty watching even one link sent to me on my phone, and after that I have no control over what the app randomely streams to me. I have to be a member to control anything about the experience.
While it would be nice to think that an app's nefarious actions can be seen relatively easily, let's remember the nefarious stuff the Uber people did with their app. Also remember that even Apple, with all their App Store resources, had no idea about "Greyball" or "God View". These functionalities were buried and obfuscated so deeply in the code that nobody found them. They were exposed via external evidence.
The same could be said of Facebook and Instagram and pretty much every social media platform. They all have web interfaces in addition to apps.
It is because it's Chinese though, or at least because it's not American. Tiktok is not an outlier in the space other than being currently hugely popular. If it was about nefarious stuff in the app then there would be discussion of all the other similar apps. But there isn't, it's just about Tiktok. Facebook cops the odd fine, RoboZuck make a sad face and everyone carries on.
