Stateline from PEW | Erika Bolstad
Postcards with big promises began showing up in mailboxes in Oregon coastal communities in 2019: “Rent your home short term, use it when you want to, guaranteed $5,000 more monthly income than you’re earning with your current property management firm,” recalled Monica Kirk, a retiree.
Kirk’s neighborhood began to transform almost immediately.
Internet-based service firms such as Airbnb, Vacasa and VRBO had been bumping up against short-term rental caps in nearby towns. So they began aggressively soliciting property owners in quieter, unincorporated seaside neighborhoods like Kirk’s, where there were fewer restrictions on rentals. Over the next year, according to a public records request Kirk filed, the number of licensed short-term rentals in unincorporated neighborhoods in Lincoln County, Oregon, grew from 385 to 601.
Read the story: Western ‘Zoom Towns’ Take Aim at Short-Term Rentals
