As a B.C. resort community, Revelstoke is exploring unique approaches to managing short-term rentals (STRs), and some experts in the local housing market are chiming in with their solutions.
The City of Revelstoke has issued at least 190 STR licences to date, and more than 600 units in the community are eligible.
Regulating these rentals that operate stays up to 90 days is no walk in the park for city staff. Since last September, they've opened more than 200 noncompliance files.
While the city decides what limits and freedoms STRs should have, Shane Styles, a 琉璃神社-based real estate broker at Tradecraft Consulting who regularly visits Revelstoke for the outdoors, wants to see more opportunities for home ownership, rather than rentals.
Styles is behind the new for-sale condo project Haus Revelstoke on Victoria Road. It promises two dozen affordable multi-room units, with a majority of the units priced between $400,000 and $600,000.
"This could be the last chance to be a part of a full-time condo community in Revelstoke that鈥檚 made for living, not turning over," the Haus Revelstoke website tempts.
With 25 years' experience in retail housing, Styles said Revelstoke's housing market is failing to cater to its key demographic of young professionals, as well as its older, more seasoned locals, by not making home ownership accessible.
After two years of assessing residential home sales and existing property listings in town, "I just saw there was a giant hole in the middle," he said. "No one is building a purpose-built, middle-income condo for Revelstokians."
While STRs can provide a good housing solution for locals working in the tourism sector, they're not a silver bullet for the wider housing market, and the community is overemphasizing their value, Styles said.
"Nobody's building anything for locals," he reiterated. "No one's just built a good, solid condo."
STRs attract homeowners looking to offset their own property and living costs, but Styles estimated Revelstoke has reached a point where average home values are soaring around $1,000 per foot.
"You've got to make it approachable for home ownership, in any way, shape or form," he said, adding that in the case of Haus Revelstoke's costs, renters in Revelstoke are nearly paying the same price over the course of their tenancy that they could instead use to simply buy a home.
Still, Styles applauds the City of Revelstoke's choice this year to explore unique, "made-in-Revelstoke" solutions for managing STRs, which he said is the right direction to be moving in.
But for those siding more with the rental market, Revelstoke's Oscar Irvine recently announced Mountain Town Rentals, a digital marketing service aimed at helping ski town residents and visitors arrange affordable short-term stays, sublets, staff housing and RV accommodation.
In a Facebook post in late June, Irvine said no other service or website previously existed for this purpose.
"Mountain Town Rentals will allow anyone with a property, room or space to rent both long and short term, the ability to connect with potential tenants without the hassle or stress of online forums," he wrote.
The corresponding website will go live soon, according to Irvine, enabling outdoor recreationists to search at no cost for weeks or even multiple seasons of accommodation "without needing to publicly plead for somewhere to stay."
Also, Mountain Town Rentals is waiving listing fees to the first 100 people who advertise their rooms or properties through the service.
Irvine said that because popular services such as Airbnb "can be damaging to local communities," his service strictly only caters to landlords based in Revelstoke. "Offshore" owners aren't allowed to list with Mountain Town Rentals, and ultra-short stays of less than two weeks aren't permitted except for RV services. Landlords can also opt to only pair with people who are actively part of and employed in Revelstoke's community.
"We want to provide housing solutions for locals by locals, not for overnight tourism like AirBnB," Irvine added.
Learn more about STRs in Revelstoke at .
