Maryland SB 463
There is a Letter to the State Senators involved in this as well as an addendum to that letter posted below on this home page, but before getting to that I wanted to share something personal.
On 2/19/2017, the day I was writing this up, I had Short Term Rental Tenants checking out of my side-by-side Short Term Rental Properties.
On 2/19/2017, the day I was writing this up, I had Short Term Rental Tenants checking out of my side-by-side Short Term Rental Properties.
Hi Bryan -- We absolutely loved your places. They are beautiful and worked perfectly for our group. Checkout checklist is attached. The black bookcase was accidentally damaged (picture of the space is also attached) . We removed the damaged bookcase from the house entirely, and placed the router and hangers in the closet on the same floor. I'm so sorry for the accident. The remote from living room was also misplaced. We searched for 20 minutes but then had to leave to catch planes / trains. It's somewhere in the house... " {and there was a little more}...
These are my personal homes, not business assets. The property in them is my personal property. I now have 48 hours to get things back in order prior to my next guest's arrival. I didn't have a trip to Comcast nor Ikea on my calendar, nor an Ikea closet assembly, and I'm wondering if my wireless router works or if it took a fall when whatever happened to the coat closet (not bookshelf) happened. Don't YOU want to be in the Short Term Rental Business too? The majority of people engaged in this very complex, very personal and very stressful business are doing it out of economic necessity, not desire nor for big profits.
Anyone who wants to claim Short Term Rental Properties are remotely like Hotels or Bed and Breakfasts, both of which have on site staff along with a slough of other differences, is sorely mistaken. Most people are engaged in this commerce out of economic necessity resulting from really Bad Federal and Consumer Banking a decade ago.
There is legislation being discussed by the Maryland Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday February 22, 2017 related to the modification of Business Regulations related to Limited Residential Lodging. See "The Bill" link for the legislative document. Basically, the Bill's Sponsor wants to call Part Time and Full Time Short Term Landlords Hoteliers for the purpose of collecting taxes over and above income tax... but it doesn't stop there... with the re-categorization, rental property owners would need to add sprinkler systems to their homes.
Math is incredibly powerful. The "Some Math..." page has some math on it that was derived from an Article related to Baltimore City legislation related to this same topic. Once real math is done, it turns out 0.6% of tourist visitors to Baltimore in 2016 were AirBNB guests (6 out of 1000). In total, 24,000 out of an estimated 4,000,000 Maryland visitors were AirBNB guests. Based on some rough estimates, the average AirBNB host might make approximately $75-80/month in income from hosting. To think we are trying to turn every homeowner in Maryland into Inn Keeper status over this AirBNB wave is down right startling. Who or what is "really" behind this legislative push, as it isn't anyone who is looking at this Math...
In truth, it's not "just" about AirBNB as there are two other players in this rising market (Homeaway and Tripadvisor) that this legislation is trying to encompass, but in reality, these other players don't do what AirBNB does, and the don't operate the same as each other, and the idea of trying to create legislation for reporting and tax collection for these other platforms is down right silly because one only just started an optional booking service and the other doesn't offer a booking service at all that I'm aware of (and I have accounts with all three of these online resources). With that understanding, who or what is "really" behind this legislative push as it isn't anyone who has any clue as to the true nature of these online resources either...
Big Bankers know citizens are in stress. Big Bankers will do all kinds of things to increase stress, as stress equals profits and economic sustainability for survivors of Bad Banking, at the expense of one home owner at a time... and ultimately, it is the Big Bankers in dark corners pushing this agenda, directly or otherwise.
This website, the Letter to the Maryland State Senators below, and the Addendum to the Maryland State Senators below is my contribution to this dialogue at this time. Copies of the documents below and this website URL was emailed to each of the Senators on the Finance Committee on 2/20/2017. The "Target Audience" link of this website includes photos, bios and contact info for the sponsoring Senator and each of the Members of the State Finance Committee.
I only have three questions for the Sponsor of this Bill and/or the Finance Committee:
Regards
Bryan
Anyone who wants to claim Short Term Rental Properties are remotely like Hotels or Bed and Breakfasts, both of which have on site staff along with a slough of other differences, is sorely mistaken. Most people are engaged in this commerce out of economic necessity resulting from really Bad Federal and Consumer Banking a decade ago.
There is legislation being discussed by the Maryland Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday February 22, 2017 related to the modification of Business Regulations related to Limited Residential Lodging. See "The Bill" link for the legislative document. Basically, the Bill's Sponsor wants to call Part Time and Full Time Short Term Landlords Hoteliers for the purpose of collecting taxes over and above income tax... but it doesn't stop there... with the re-categorization, rental property owners would need to add sprinkler systems to their homes.
Math is incredibly powerful. The "Some Math..." page has some math on it that was derived from an Article related to Baltimore City legislation related to this same topic. Once real math is done, it turns out 0.6% of tourist visitors to Baltimore in 2016 were AirBNB guests (6 out of 1000). In total, 24,000 out of an estimated 4,000,000 Maryland visitors were AirBNB guests. Based on some rough estimates, the average AirBNB host might make approximately $75-80/month in income from hosting. To think we are trying to turn every homeowner in Maryland into Inn Keeper status over this AirBNB wave is down right startling. Who or what is "really" behind this legislative push, as it isn't anyone who is looking at this Math...
In truth, it's not "just" about AirBNB as there are two other players in this rising market (Homeaway and Tripadvisor) that this legislation is trying to encompass, but in reality, these other players don't do what AirBNB does, and the don't operate the same as each other, and the idea of trying to create legislation for reporting and tax collection for these other platforms is down right silly because one only just started an optional booking service and the other doesn't offer a booking service at all that I'm aware of (and I have accounts with all three of these online resources). With that understanding, who or what is "really" behind this legislative push as it isn't anyone who has any clue as to the true nature of these online resources either...
Big Bankers know citizens are in stress. Big Bankers will do all kinds of things to increase stress, as stress equals profits and economic sustainability for survivors of Bad Banking, at the expense of one home owner at a time... and ultimately, it is the Big Bankers in dark corners pushing this agenda, directly or otherwise.
This website, the Letter to the Maryland State Senators below, and the Addendum to the Maryland State Senators below is my contribution to this dialogue at this time. Copies of the documents below and this website URL was emailed to each of the Senators on the Finance Committee on 2/20/2017. The "Target Audience" link of this website includes photos, bios and contact info for the sponsoring Senator and each of the Members of the State Finance Committee.
I only have three questions for the Sponsor of this Bill and/or the Finance Committee:
- What is the name of the Law Firm and/or the Lobbyist firm who drafted this Bill?
- What is the name of the lead Attorney related to the text creation in this Bill?
- What is the name of the Attorney, Paralegal or other person who actually put their hands on a computer keyboard and created the document I am now referencing as the bill?
Regards
Bryan