America - The Official Thread

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I don't think any light touch moves are going to push the needle. It's hammer time.
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.
 

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.
That's looks like a great deal from my side of the country.
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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:

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.
 
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.
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.
 
Speaking of "Moscow Marjorie", here's Michelle Cottle on the subject at the free link below

A sample - "“I said from the beginning I’m going to be responsible with this,” she said, in what may be her most laughable line in weeks — a high bar for the House member known for her keen insights on Jewish space lasers."

 
My platform if I was running for office:

Executive Compensation Reform - To fix our busted ass and crazy distorted obsession with finance market capitalism that keeps leading to really bad and short sighted results across basically every sector of the economy.
  • Set new rules for duration executives must remain at public companies before stock options are available (5 years)
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.
  • Set cash compensation limits based on proportion of company revenue or not to exceed some multiplier of median employee salary
Now we're talking.
Civilian Service Corps - To fix our busted ass infrastructure and housing while giving something productive to do - while building useful skills - for the most problematic age demographic, particularly males.
  • Mandatory (paid) service for all 18-22 year olds (until they are 22) to participate in civilian service with the main goal of building or rebuilding infrastructure, building housing, and other needs with the following exceptions:
    • College enrollment
    • Military enlistment
  • Significant bonus upon completion of service - such as a house of some nominal value

I think those two things could go a long way in improving our country because they would help alleviate problems in so many corners of American culture.
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.

We've got a lot of problems in America but I'm not sure which one you're trying to solve (or create) by forcing young people to do things they don't want to do. American culture simply isn't built for this type of obedience and it will create unforseen societal problems.

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:

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.
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 get that this area is really convenient for events in the area, and I get that normal rentals are common in the area, but it's still kind of annoying. Good news is that I already got my house so the added scarcity is now helping me. There is some low-end gentrification going on in the area.

If there are too many STRs in the area for the amount of tourism, they'll fall off.
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.

Basically what I'm trying to say is business owners are more likely to be cutthroat and careless than genuine homeowners. The market doesn't have a solution to everything, particularly when it comes to taking care. The market tends to destroy before it rebuilds, and it rebuilds in the cheapest, crappiest way possible, with disregard for the needs of actual people. The biggest piece of evidence is that across this entire city full of tens of thousands of prospective first-time home buyers, "the market" only has one solution - buy farmland and litter it with $500,000 HOA houses. Anything affordable becomes a rental, denying first-time buyers an opportunity to gain property wealth. "The market" is trash, corporate owners are greedy and selfish, and they refuse to address the problems that exist in housing across the country. They're driven by money and money alone, with complete disregard for community. That is literally the opposite of how the close-knit neighborhoods and healthy middle-class of America's past developed.
 
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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.

Basically what I'm trying to say is business owners are more likely to be cutthroat and careless than genuine homeowners. The market doesn't have a solution to everything, particularly when it comes to taking care. The market tends to destroy before it rebuilds, and it rebuilds in the cheapest, crappiest way possible, with disregard for the needs of actual people. The biggest piece of evidence is that across this entire city full of tens of thousands of prospective first-time home buyers, "the market" only has one solution - buy farmland and litter it with $500,000 HOA houses. Anything affordable becomes a rental, denying first-time buyers an opportunity to gain property wealth. "The market" is trash, corporate owners are greedy and selfish, and they refuse to address the problems that exist in housing across the country. They're driven by money and money alone, with complete disregard for community. That is literally the opposite of how the close-knit neighborhoods and healthy middle-class of America's past developed.
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.

Businesses (and individuals) will not continue to buy up STRs if the STR market becomes saturated - so the problem is self-limiting. Your thesis seems to be that businesses will just keep buying up STRs, refusing to invest in them, let them get run down, and never stop converting homes into STRs. The reality is different. If you buy an STR you don't want it to get run down because you need people to continue to want to use it. By contrast, a homeowner may be perfectly fine living in a meth lab. Also, the rental market gets saturated, prices go down, and so demand for STRs in the area go down. You need to confront these realities when you're painting your picture of how corporate greed is ruining your neighborhood.

Also, your phrasing "robbing locals of permanent homes" is unnecessarily emotive. Locals don't have an entitlement to permanent homes. Someone else, or a company, buying a home is not stealing from them, it's not theirs.

You seem to be arguing out of both sides of your mouth here. The seller was frustrated with you for not being the right kind of buyer, and yet you say corporate sellers don't give a damned who buys, and simultaneously that individual sellers are more picky about who buys. The idea that an individual seller wouldn't be picky about what kind of loan you have is not accurate. The idea that corporate sellers don't care who buys is undermined by your example, but also don't we WANT sellers to be non-discriminatory? Individual sellers being "picky" about who they sell to creates race-aligned neighborhoods. For example, when I bought my house in California and moved in, my neighbor explained to me that he was shocked that I was not Korean - because Koreans selling to Koreans was the general rule in the neighborhood. If a company is not doing that, isn't that a good thing?

STRs really can be, and often are, owned by individuals that care deeply about the area - sometimes moreso than their primary residence. The neighborhood I live in in Colorado has quite a few people who own STRs in mountain towns, and I can tell you with certainty that they would dump on their primary residence faster than the mountain town that they hold dear. Please do allow yourself to reconsider the demographics of STR owners.
 
Also, your phrasing "robbing locals of permanent homes" is unnecessarily emotive. Locals don't have an entitlement to permanent homes. Someone else, or a company, buying a home is not stealing from them, it's not theirs.
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.

I mean, we have family friends who own 28 homes (at least that's what they claim) in Northern Michigan and use them all for STR. Those properties should absolutely be businesses, not residences.
 
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.
"Non-locals" is an interesting assumption. "All the homes" is another interesting way to put it.

There is not a fixed pie of homes. To take the example of the mountain towns near me, they are actively building workforce housing to manage not just lower priced housing but also to handle seasonal workers. The town expands, to the extent that it can, but also can restructure itself internally.
If people can't live a reasonable distance from where they work, they likely will find a different job.
...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.
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.
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.
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
That seems balancing actually.
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.

I mean, we have family friends who own 28 homes (at least that's what they claim) in Northern Michigan and use them all for STR. Those properties should absolutely be businesses, not residences.
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.
 
"Non-locals" is an interesting assumption. "All the homes" is another interesting way to put it.

There is not a fixed pie of homes. To take the example of the mountain towns near me, they are actively building workforce housing to manage not just lower priced housing but also to handle seasonal workers. The town expands, to the extent that it can, but also can restructure itself internally.
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.

And there is a fixed pie of homes here (thanks to politicians). High density can't be built and permits for new homes are extremely rare. They want to build apartments in Boyne City because the city needs them, but the local government decided that it doesn't want what it considers "high density" housing and has rejected every proposal. However, the city wants to grow and has been attracting industries left and right with tax breaks. Now those industries are having a difficult time getting people to work there because they can't move anyone here. Our hospital is woefully understaffed as well since there isn't any housing to bring in nurses who want to work here. If they're going to live 50 miles away, they might as well just work at a closer health system.

It will work itself out since the industries will fail and move elsewhere, but what I'm angry about is the politicians' shortsightedness. Why should we go through the economy collapsing so it can self-regulate when they could do the bare minimum and approve things like apartment buildings?
..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.
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.
That seems balancing actually.
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.
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.
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.

Most STRs aren't operated as businesses (at least not here anyway) and are people using websites like Airbnb to rent a place. If they were operated by a property management company solely to provide short-term accommodation to tourists, that would be a bit different since that's more or less just a hotel with houses instead of rooms. But these are just retired boomers from downstate who were told having rental properties is how you secure your retirement (which was incredibly common around 2008 in Michigan).

We do have a few property management companies up here, but they own entire neighborhoods for the purpose of STR and have the infrastructure in place to support it (clubhouse, trash services, road maintenance, etc.) I don't find those to be the problem since they exist solely for that purpose. They were never intended to be a house for someone and were always going to be a resort-like community.
 
When the owners live several hundred miles away in the Detroit or Grand Rapids area, I would consider them non-locals.
What about the person across the street who owns an STR?
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.

And there is a fixed pie of homes here (thanks to politicians). High density can't be built and permits for new homes are extremely rare. They want to build apartments in Boyne City because the city needs them, but the local government decided that it doesn't want what it considers "high density" housing and has rejected every proposal. However, the city wants to grow and has been attracting industries left and right with tax breaks. Now those industries are having a difficult time getting people to work there because they can't move anyone here. Our hospital is woefully understaffed as well since there isn't any housing to bring in nurses who want to work here. If they're going to live 50 miles away, they might as well just work at a closer health system.

It will work itself out since the industries will fail and move elsewhere, but what I'm angry about is the politicians' shortsightedness. Why should we go through the economy collapsing so it can self-regulate when they could do the bare minimum and approve things like apartment buildings?
This doesn't seem like a complaint about STRs.
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.
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.
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.
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".

Most STRs aren't operated as businesses (at least not here anyway) and are people using websites like Airbnb to rent a place. If they were operated by a property management company solely to provide short-term accommodation to tourists, that would be a bit different since that's more or less just a hotel with houses instead of rooms. But these are just retired boomers from downstate who were told having rental properties is how you secure your retirement (which was incredibly common around 2008 in Michigan).

We do have a few property management companies up here, but they own entire neighborhoods for the purpose of STR and have the infrastructure in place to support it (clubhouse, trash services, road maintenance, etc.) I don't find those to be the problem since they exist solely for that purpose. They were never intended to be a house for someone and were always going to be a resort-like community.
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.
 
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.

Businesses (and individuals) will not continue to buy up STRs if the STR market becomes saturated - so the problem is self-limiting. Your thesis seems to be that businesses will just keep buying up STRs, refusing to invest in them, let them get run down, and never stop converting homes into STRs. The reality is different. If you buy an STR you don't want it to get run down because you need people to continue to want to use it. By contrast, a homeowner may be perfectly fine living in a meth lab. Also, the rental market gets saturated, prices go down, and so demand for STRs in the area go down. You need to confront these realities when you're painting your picture of how corporate greed is ruining your neighborhood.

Also, your phrasing "robbing locals of permanent homes" is unnecessarily emotive. Locals don't have an entitlement to permanent homes. Someone else, or a company, buying a home is not stealing from them, it's not theirs.

You seem to be arguing out of both sides of your mouth here. The seller was frustrated with you for not being the right kind of buyer, and yet you say corporate sellers don't give a damned who buys, and simultaneously that individual sellers are more picky about who buys. The idea that an individual seller wouldn't be picky about what kind of loan you have is not accurate. The idea that corporate sellers don't care who buys is undermined by your example, but also don't we WANT sellers to be non-discriminatory? Individual sellers being "picky" about who they sell to creates race-aligned neighborhoods. For example, when I bought my house in California and moved in, my neighbor explained to me that he was shocked that I was not Korean - because Koreans selling to Koreans was the general rule in the neighborhood. If a company is not doing that, isn't that a good thing?

STRs really can be, and often are, owned by individuals that care deeply about the area - sometimes moreso than their primary residence. The neighborhood I live in in Colorado has quite a few people who own STRs in mountain towns, and I can tell you with certainty that they would dump on their primary residence faster than the mountain town that they hold dear. Please do allow yourself to reconsider the demographics of STR owners.
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.

I may have skewed expectations due to the strong community in this neighborhood. There are actually two different families who live in the neighborhood who operate non-corporate contracting companies and have been responsible for a couple dozen renovations and restorations within the historic district. Who they've sold to I'm not sure, but that type of dedication to the existing neighborhood is strong here. I'm not involved with the local action groups but I'm sure they've got the historical context on the effects of the various STRs in the area.

One thing I do know is that demand for homeownership in the area is very high and I hope permanent residents are getting what they need and want. If they're not then I consider that a problem.
 
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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.
 
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What about the person across the street who owns an STR?
There are likely some up here, but they are not a majority by any means, especially given the median income.
This doesn't seem like a complaint about STRs.
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:

Basically, if they would approve affordable housing or high-density housing, none of this would be an issue. But they don't approve it and homes quickly get bought up by people making them into STR for over the asking price. A vast majority of people can't compete with that, especially when getting a mortgage because the bank isn't going to finance it.
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.
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
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".
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.
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.
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.

Maybe I'm not using the right word here. But we also have communities that are owned and operated by companies for the sole purpose of being short-term vacation homes. You go to their website to book them like you would a hotel and check in at a clubhouse of sorts to get the code to enter the cabin/house. They're typically located around a private lake or a golf course.
 
There are likely some up here, but they are not a majority by any means, especially given the median income.
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.
STRs wouldn't be an issue if people could actually live here and politicians allowed for adequate housing to be built
Sounds like a complaint about local government.
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.
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?

Why should a homeowner such as myself be barred from selling access to my home to someone to live in (like, for a year or longer)? Should I also be barred from renting out my car (such as via turo.com) or rv (such as through rvshare.com)? Should I be prevented from renting out my pool (yes that's a thing, you can rent someone's backyard pool for a day online)? Should I be prevented from renting out my yard for a party?

I'm not talking about an HOA here, I'm talking about a city or state-wide ordinance. What about renting out personal equipment like a camera, or skis? What about using personal equipment in a rental service like uber? What about renting out tools? Should all of these require commercial licenses? Does every instance of renting personal property make me a business and require government oversight?

There are real reasons to file a business incorporation and get a business license. I have done it, and I had good reasons to do it. There are also semi-good reasons for zoning areas for particular kinds of use such as commercial or residential. But few of these reasons actually apply to rental property, and even fewer distinguish between long term and short term rental in the way that many people seem to want.

What's more, zoning or business incorporation doesn't seem to be addressing many of the complaints. An HOA that rules out short term rentals (like the one I live in) would seem to be a viable solution for many of these complaints.

STRs are amazing. They have dramatically improved the vacation rental prospect for the average vacationer, and they also have been a major boon for homeowners. I do understand that they have caused a rise in house prices, and this has some adverse effects. But let's not look at it only from one side. It has offered a wonderful service in exchange for that property price increase.

I think a lot of the concern about whether local economies can manage through the shifting demographics of housing is feigned on the part of people who just want a lower barrier to entry for a single family home in the area. And I'd suggest that if a single family home in a particular area costs too much, there has never been an easier time to vote with your feet. Remote and distributed work has never been easier. Hating on an industry that is doing a lot of good just so that the entry price to real estate in a vacation destination is a little lower seems short-sighted to me. The money is there because people really really want it. It's making their lives easier and better.
 
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TikTok is under fire in Washington, and the controversy runs deep.

In a questionable statement, TikTok's spokesperson, Alex Haurek, criticized a recent Congressional decision, labeling it as "sadly ironic." He argued that the law undermines the free expression rights of 170 million Americans under the guise of promoting global freedom. Yet, this outcry might just be a smokescreen for deeper issues inherent in the app itself, which is owned by ByteDance.

Interestingly, you don't need the app to access TikTok—you can simply visit tiktok-dot-com via any web browser. Browsers generally offer more privacy protections and give users the ability to customize their settings, placing control firmly in the hands of the user, not TikTok.

This raises a question: If apps can be engineered with covert privacy breaches—recall the Uber scandal—why does TikTok insist on app usage if a browser suffices for video sharing and viewing? The company's vehement opposition to app bans smells suspiciously like there's more at stake than just user convenience.

Could it be that TikTok's app contains elements that serve ByteDance's interests more than those of its users? Something certainly seems off.
 
Could it be that TikTok's app contains elements that serve ByteDance's interests more than those of its users? Something certainly seems off.
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.
 
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.

Interestingly, you don't need the app to access TikTok—you can simply visit tiktok-dot-com via any web browser.
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.

Can you clarify whether you or the government are talking about the literal mobile application, or the service in general? The service in general will be collecting similar data regardless of what device you're logged in on.
 
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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.
Can't so readily seize on xenophobic sentiment from that angle.
 
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.
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.
 
TikTok is under fire in Washington, and the controversy runs deep.

In a questionable statement, TikTok's spokesperson, Alex Haurek, criticized a recent Congressional decision, labeling it as "sadly ironic." He argued that the law undermines the free expression rights of 170 million Americans under the guise of promoting global freedom. Yet, this outcry might just be a smokescreen for deeper issues inherent in the app itself, which is owned by ByteDance.

Interestingly, you don't need the app to access TikTok—you can simply visit tiktok-dot-com via any web browser. Browsers generally offer more privacy protections and give users the ability to customize their settings, placing control firmly in the hands of the user, not TikTok.

This raises a question: If apps can be engineered with covert privacy breaches—recall the Uber scandal—why does TikTok insist on app usage if a browser suffices for video sharing and viewing? The company's vehement opposition to app bans smells suspiciously like there's more at stake than just user convenience.

Could it be that TikTok's app contains elements that serve ByteDance's interests more than those of its users? Something certainly seems off.
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.

Of course Tiktok's app contains elements that serve ByteDance's interests more than it's users. Tiktok exists because it serves ByteDance's interests more than it's users, just like every social media platform. The users are the product that they're selling.
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 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.

The difference with Tiktok is that it's not a US owned company. Big scary, someone wheel out the bones of Joseph McCarthy.
 
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.

The difference with Tiktok is that it's not a US owned company. Big scary, someone wheel out the bones of Joseph McCarthy.

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