Your #1 Maui Property Resource

The county of Maui is trying it’s best to make sure that there is enough housing for the local population. In doing so, it has passed a new regulation that requires the owners of a property to wait 5 years before applying for a short-term rental home permit. This new regulation applies to any property that is not grandfathered in or is not built in a zoning area that allows short term rentals without a permit.

The problem with the law is it doesn’t do much to alleviate the housing shortage for the population that is ever growing and needs housing now. Most of the houses that were used for short-term rentals in Maui were oceanfront or near to the ocean. The people renting those homes for 30,000 or 40,000+ per month are not going to take a 10 million dollar home and rent it for 2,000 or 3,000 to a local person. Those homes need to be a part of the vacation rental market. The new law is a negative for those homeowners as they won’t be able to sell very easily and if the new owner has to buy and hold for 5 years we will lose critical revenue for all the businesses that serve those vacationer goers. Additionally, the County of Maui will lose tax revenues that they could use to invest in improving our schools and infrastructure for our communities. This law did very little to help with housing.

Hopefully changes will be made soon. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that as we get more regulation it doesn’t get worse for the local house owner.

Many condominiums and some homes don’t need a permit, give us a call if you aren’t sure if a property is legally permitted to be a short term rental.

We keep having people ask us how we keep our occupancy rates up so high. Well we could give away our algorithms here but we won’t. However, even with our Booking Algorithm, it still requires attention to detail and constant striving to do better. Our philosophy is around the idea that if our clients are making more money and are heavily booked, then they will want to keep their unit. Thus, they will want to keep us as their manager as well.

Not only are we getting some of the highest occupancies on the island of Maui, but we are seeing higher rental rates due to our large syndication to our integration partners. It pays to work with a finance software engineer of 20 years that knows how to setup and manage the property management business.

We hope to work with you for life and we want to grow our business as you grow your investments. We wish you the best for a profitable 2019 and an ever more profitable 2020.

Recent changes to vacation rental rules in the county of Maui restrict new vacation rental permits. Now in order to apply for a vacation rental permit, you must own the property for 5 years before applying for the permit. The new rules have tightened the ability for homeowners that are also trying to sell previous vacation rented properties. There are some properties that are designed around being specific vacation rentals. However, now they will have a much tougher time to sell.

The changes come as the Maui County Council begins to try and reduce the number of vacation rentals on the island of Maui in an effort to open up more residential housing. This is a valiant effort but does not come close to addressing the need for affordable housing which the majority of vacation rentals homes did not meet this criteria.

Solutions for Maui housing crunch are sure to come in the future as the crunch reaches crisis levels. As more and more regulations and laws are in acted, it is yet to be seen if it will make a difference in the overall affordability of Maui.