Short-term rentals have a greater impact upon the stock of available housing in Warren County than previously thought, the Planning Department’s Sara Frankenfeld told a committee of Warren County Supervisors on June 28.
According to Warren County’s “Housing Needs Study,” an analysis commissioned by the county Planning Department and released in November, 2023, Warren County had 934 known STRs as of a year ago.
Using more refined data, the Planning Department has found 990 STRs registered with the country and at least 200 more that have yet to be recorded, said Frankenfeld.
She said the county Treasurer’s office has retained a company called Granicus, which specializes in short-term rental compliance and management, to capture those unregistered STRs.
The 2023 “Housing Needs Study” estimated that the number of Short-term rentals in Warren County increased by roughly 58% from early 2020 to early 2023.
As more and more Long-term rentals and single-family homes are converted to Short-term rentals “we start to have issues with housing availability across the county,” Frankenfeld told the Supervisors.
Absent additional short term rental regulations, the number of Short-term rentals in the area is likely to grow, said Frankenfeld.
It Started with the Pandemic
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic, which created a demand for safer, less crowded, family-oriented vacation spaces, was responsible for the rise in local Short-term rentals, said Frankenefeld.
Nearly half the county’s existing Short-term rental properties were purchased in the last decade, but 28% were purchased sometime between the start of the pandemic in April, 2020 and April, 2024.
“That’s a phenomenal number,” said Frankenfeld.
Commercializing Single-Family Homes
Not surprisingly, the greatest concentration of Short-term rentals is to be found in the summer and winter vacation destinations of Lake George, Bolton, Hague and Johnsburg.
Nearly two thirds of the properties converted to STRs are owned by those whose full-time residence lies outside Warren County.
While that figure may include the summer or seasonal residents who occasionally rent their vacation homes to others, many may not be, and sizable numbers of year-round residents fear their communities and neighborhoods will be overwhelmed by STRS that are nothing less than commercial enterprises, occupied by transient visitors in high season and vacant the rest of the year.
To discourage the commercialization of its housing stock, the Town of Hague adopted an STR ordinance on June 13, 2024, that stipulates that no one may rent living quarters to guests for less than 28 days until they have lived in Hague for at least three years.
According to Frankenfeld, Hague has three times as many housing units as it does households and Bolton has 2.7 more units than households, a statistic that suggests that many buildings in those two communities are being used solely as STRs.
Encroaching Upon Hamlets
In Bolton and Lake George, resort communities where businesses catering to tourists out-number those serving year-round residents, the presence of Short-term renters is less disruptive than in other parts of the county.
“Problems start to arise when we have historically year-round communities, which lack a surplus of housing units, start to see an influx of Short-term rentals,” said Frankenfeld.
But even in the resort towns, STRs are not confined to lake shores or ridge lines with panoramic views.
“Surprisingly, more than a third of Short-term rentals are located in areas designated by the Adirondack Park Agency as hamlets, where there is greater density and which typically have a higher percentage of year-round residents,” said Frankenfeld.
Of the seven towns in Warren County that have adopted Short-term rental regulations, only Lake George employs zoning to prohibit them in strictly residential neighborhoods.
The Rising Costs of Housing
“Short-term rentals are definitely responsible for driving up the costs of housing in Warren County,” said Frankenfeld.
Frankenfeld told the supervisors that according to a common misconception, Short-term rentals are limited to lakefront mansions that are beyond the means of the average Warren County home-buyer.
“While those types of properties do serve as Short-term rentals, they are not the majority of them,” she said.
Of the 197 single-family residences that have been purchased since 2020 and converted to Short-term rentals, 73 of them are located in hamlet areas and commanded prices higher than most working families could afford.
People are converting single family homes to Short-term rentals for the simple reason that “short term rentals make lots of money,” Frankenfeld said. The total revenue of Warren County’s Short-term rentals in 2023 was $15.6 million. Based on rates reported to the Warren County’s Treasurer’s office, the average monthly revenue for a Warren County STR was $3,889 – higher than rents commanded by year-round housing. According to the 2023 “Housing Needs Study,” a year-round renter in Warren County is likely to pay between $1,000 and $2,000 per month.
Replenishing the Housing Stock
According to the study, “an increase in STRs results in a decrease in available housing units (in) some other market segment.”
Among its recommendations for replacing the long-term rentals lost to short-term programs: create an incentive program for converting STRs to long-term housing unit or seasonal temporary workforce housing unit.
According to Sara Frankenfeld, such a program might require a fund large enough to pay STR owners money to rent to year-round residents.
The subsidy would compensate them for the loss of short-term rental income she said.
“If they’re making $3,889 a month operating a Short-term rental, and they could get $2,500 a month renting to a year-round resident, the program would pay them a subsidy of $1,300 per month or a percentage of that sum to rent to a working family,” Frankenfeld said.
According to Warren County Planner Ethan Gaddy, the Planning Department is in the process of organizing roundtable conversations with municipal officials to exchange information about how best to manage the growth of Short-term rentals in the various communities.
