By Baris Ergin
What’s new in the largest vacation rental market in America’s largest state? Plenty.
As of November 1, 2019, you can only list one Los Angeles vacation rental property on platforms like Airbnb. The city’s new Home-Sharing Ordinance says you’re required to register with the city, pay an $89 annual fee, and include a valid registration number in each listing.
But wait … there’s more.
That single LA property you’re allowed to rent on a short-term basis must be your primary residence. And you’re only permitted to engage in home-sharing for no more than 120 days per year – BUT you can apply for an “Extended Home-Sharing Registration” for $850, and if you meet the criteria, gain additional rental days.
Now, before you say, “Thanks, but I’ll just keep doin’ what I’ve been doin’ and things should work out just fine,” keep this in mind: fines for listing a property without registering are $500 a day, and rise to $2,000 a day for listings beyond the 120-day maximum (for those interested in math, the latter adds up to $14,000 per week or around $60,000 per month in fines).
That’s the current LA vacation rental situation relating to owners in a nutshell. But then there’s Santa Monica, with its own Home-Sharing Ordinance, adopted in 2015 and last amended in September, 2019.
And what if your vacation rental property is located in West Hollywood? Well, there’s a separate licensing process and set of requirements for that city within a city, with fines for non-compliance running as high as $5,000. And to top it off, WeHo officials have warned owners that “continued non-compliance may result in … criminal prosecution.”
But let’s return to the City of Angels.
Last year, LA whole-home vacation rentals alone accounted for a whopping $2.5 billion in revenue. Clearly, big bucks are involved here – for the city AND property owners.
Given recent changes, it’s never been more important to optimize every aspect of vacation rental management on and off Airbnb. Rather than run the risk of misinterpreting local regulations or making other costly mistakes, many owners are seeking the services of the best Los Angeles vacation rental manager they can find.
The right LA vacation rental management company will optimize your property’s turnover rate throughout your legal rental period each year; ensure housekeeping is done properly on a consistent basis; maximize your odds of achieving Superhost status on Airbnb; make it easy to participate in the “sharing economy”; and help you make the right moves in a changing vacation rental environment.
That’s where we come in. One Fine BnB is capable of handling most everything and relieving you of a big burden, so you largely sit back and collect a direct deposit each month. Schedule a complimentary consultation with a One Fine BnB Airbnb expert on short-term vacation rental management in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Pasadena, and other areas in the LA Basin. If you qualify, you’ll receive a free revenue projection for your property. And you’ll learn how One Fine BnB – an innovator in Airbnb vacation rental management – makes the entire process surprisingly easy for owners.
Written by
Baris Ergin
Baris Ergin is a co-owner of One Fine BnB, a management company running hundreds of vacation rentals, and one of the three founders of BnB Genius, Inc., along with Chad Ozgur and Kent Morgan. Before short-term rentals he built and exited three tech companies. At BnBGenius he works on the automation itself — the guest messaging, the task dispatch that fires on checkout, and the voice agent that answers the phone when a guest calls and nobody is free to pick up. He built it to give a host with one to five listings the tools a manager with hundreds of properties already has.
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