Have you been to Barcelona? I haven’t but I’ve been to Spain at least 100 times. This happened in the summer of 1983 when I visited the Pyrenees, the elegant mountain range that stretches from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean along the Franco-Spanish border.
Many of the more popular hiking trails straddle that border and so it’s possible to move from France to Spain and back to France about 1,000 times a day. Maybe I was 18 and maybe I ended up in Marbella or maybe it was Madrid.
I’m keen to visit Barcelona but not for the soccer. My favorite team of all my teams is a soccer team but I’m not a huge fan of the game, especially the Spanish version where there are two things going on: someone’s being fouled or someone’s pretending to be fouled.
Perhaps I need to visit the Catalan capital before 2028. Why? Until the end of 2027, I can stay in an Airbnb or other short-term rental. After that, it’s a hotel or my super-yacht, moored conveniently off the coast. Yes, Barcelona has joined the long list of municipalities that has given the STR business a straight red card.
Have you been to Raleigh, North Carolina? If you haven’t, you haven’t missed much. It’s close to Durham, which is a rancid dump, and Chapel Hill, which is a magnificent college town. Raleigh has become, like so many “New South” cities, a poster child for suburban sprawl. There’s a Lowe’s next to a Home Depot next to a Best Buy next to an Outback Steakhouse.
Raleigh isn’t a tourist destination but, to its credit, the decisionmakers decided to rein in the STR market. The list of cities and towns taking similar action has quietly pullulated over the last five years. There’s Durango just down the road, plus you’ll get total bans in several California towns including Carmel, Ojai, Tiburon, and Manhattan Beach.
When it comes to staying in a STR, I’m guilty as charged. I’ve been to Delray Beach near Boca Raton many times, primarily because it’s the home of America’s top ersatz English pub, The Blue Anchor. It boasts a curious collection of regulars so tread lightly, especially after 11.
I avoid the Delray hotels and stay in an Airbnb. There’s a sleaze aspect, some bait and switch, as I see an apartment that rents for $100 a night. But then I get smacked for hundreds in mysterious fees. Maybe that’s not a whopping surprise. Airbnb and companies of that ilk have always sought to reorganize towns and cities to line their pockets. And if you believe the carefully-crafted guff about “community” on their websites, then let’s try to find some powder on Wildcat later today.
I’m not into pickleball so I avoid The Pickleball Channel but I work in the golf business, on occasion, and so The Golf Channel is on. I regularly see ads for Vrbo. These ads use the classic problem-solution approach. The problem: Airbnb is awful. The solution: Vrbo, because you always get your own place. Vrbo is spending millions on media placement, clearly showing that the STR market is alive and well, despite the best efforts of municipal decisionmakers around the world.
There’s another ad I also see on The Golf Channel. Three blonde real estate agents bounce around Aspen, touting the town as a great place to invest. It’s a subtle way of saying that the STR market is healthy. Look closely at the local market listings and you find ones that boast a “short-term rental license.”
Recently, local government decisionmakers passed a series of complex and byzantine ordinances to deal with STR problems. The goal was to generate revenue through additional taxes and to bring some balance to the rental market so that people who live here can actually … live here.
There’s more money in government coffers but little has effectively changed when it comes to free-market rentals. Want proof?
Head to Zillow rentals and you’ll see next to nothing. Head to Airbnb and Vrbo and you’ll have plenty of options. Rental rates may have stopped heading upwards in the free market but they’re not decreasing. The supply of free-market rentals in the Aspen market in the zero-to-three-bedroom range remains scant.
Predicting the future is not one of my superpowers but I’m confident that, tomorrow morning, as I seek some solace, peace, and clarity in the coffee shop I frequent, some punter will be rudely yammering into their phone or leading a loud Zoom call. I also can predict that the powers-that-be will look at the current state of the housing market in Aspen and environs, where nothing has changed for the long-term renter, admire their gleaming ordinances, and tell us that everything is just fine and dandy.
It's a complex and nuanced issue. There’s no guarantee that Barcelona’s new laws will radically change the housing market in favor of the people who live and work in that fair city. Can we say the effort that was put into our STR ordinances has worked? Nobody can send me data that it’s made any difference thus far, unless I’m missing something.
But if nothing significant changes in the next few months, I believe it’ll be time to try a totally new and more aggressive set of regulations, as painful as that might seem.
Scott Martin is a direct response copywriter, ski instructor, and direct marketing specialist. He’s a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which gives him the license to call the town that hosts Duke University “a rancid dump.”
