In Saranac Lake and around the Adirondacks, rise of short-term rentals mean fewer choices for residents
By Mike De Socio
Open up the popular house-hunting site Zillow and search for rentals in Saranac Lake. You might, as I did on a recent search, come up with a surprising answer: “No matching results. Try changing your search.” In other words: No available apartments here; move along.
Maybe try a different site. Fire up HotPads and do the same search. “No listings found.” Trulia? “Unfortunately, there are no available homes in Saranac Lake, NY.” Facebook Marketplace? A few listings in nearby Lake Placid or Wilmington pop up, but again, nothing in Saranac Lake.
This confounding process has greeted many residents in recent months as the real estate market in the Adirondacks has been dominated by a pandemic-fueled migration and growth in vacation rentals such as those listed by Airbnb or VRBO. The effects might be most visible in home purchases, where sale prices have gone up by as much as 40% in some areas. But the impact is also being felt by renters in the region who are struggling to find affordable places to live.
“It’s a problem that is very front and center for a lot of communities, and certainly for Saranac Lake,” said Melinda Little, a village trustee.
The struggle is real: Three experiences
The Adirondack Explorer spoke with a number of residents in the region who have struggled with this very problem. Below are stories from three of them:
Rising rent prices
The median rent in Franklin County for a three-bedroom apartment — $1,086 — has gone up by 10 percent since 2019, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data. In Essex County, three-bedroom median rent has increased 5 percent since 2019, now reaching $1,246.
Saranac Lake, a village with about 2,500 households, is now home to as many as 240 active short-term rental units in the summer months, according to 2020 data from AirDNA.
Those numbers may not seem drastic, but Little and local residents say the lack of affordable rental housing in the area is a combination of many factors that have been building for years. Historic, aging buildings are expensive to maintain. There is little remaining land available to build new housing in the village. And an increasing presence of short-term rental units is crowding out residents.
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“There’s so many pressures that are making it really difficult for anybody to find decent places to live that aren’t over the sky in terms of price,” Little said.
This phenomenon is playing out far beyond the Tri-Lakes area. Town officials in Old Forge, Elizabethtown and Hague all said high property turnover and a growing inventory of vacation rentals during the pandemic are putting pressure on the local housing supply.
David Berkstresser, supervisor for the Town of Webb, which includes the Old Forge hamlet, said the pandemic has transformed many of the town’s apartments into more profitable short-term rentals, making it hard for residents to find year-round rentals.
“We’re suffering the same as the rest of them,” Berkstresser said.
Working toward solutions
Little, the village trustee, has been focused on housing issues since she was first elected three years ago. Some of the efforts have been stalled due to the pandemic, but Little said these are some of the recommendations her working group has been discussing:
- Creating local programs to assist homeowners with repairs. Little said the condition of older multi-family homes in the village is a serious issue. Providing financial assistance could help more property owners take on renovations of these historic homes. “There’s some willingness on the part of local banks to be more helpful in this area,” Little said.
- Developing a land bank. The village is in the early stages of creating a local land bank, Little said, which would have the power to seize so-called “zombie properties” and find a means to rehabilitate them.
- Encouraging development of vacant parcels. Little admits there aren’t many of these left in the village. But she points to a new affordable housing development on Broadway as a model for the type of housing the village should try to build more of. “That is going to be a really, really nice development,” Little said. (A similar development is in the works in Lake Placid, too.)
- Registering (and potentially regulating) short-term rentals. The rise of vacation units has happened too quickly for the village to keep up. The village board wants to create a tracking and permitting system for short-term rentals to get a better handle on the situation. Others have advocated for further regulation or taxes, similar to the approach Lake Placid has taken.
The regulation of short-term rentals, however, could also harm long-time residents who use the platforms to supplement their income and afford their homes. One of those, Mary Bartel, lives in a home on Broadway in Saranac Lake that also includes her yoga business and two short-term rental efficiencies. She says the Airbnb income allows her to continue running her business. And while she’s already registered with the county and paying bed taxes, she says she would prefer not to see an additional permit cost.
Ultimately, figuring out a way to solve these issues is a matter of preserving Saranac Lake as a place where families can settle down. Otherwise, the village could be dominated by second-homeowners and short-term tourists.
“People want to be here, but they can’t find anything to rent, so they get completely discouraged and don’t end up staying here,” Little said.
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Yeah, no surprises to be seen here. And attracting long term renters is also a key factor for economic growth – because folks moving to the area to work will often prefer to rent for a little while, especially younger people.
Imo regulation of short term rentals will make the most difference. I think there is a very happy medium between keeping locals from income (yoga teacher example) and having a situation as extreme as it is now, where huge chunks of the region are AirBnBs.
It seems the important question to ask is how many people are looking for a rental in the area? It’s not like there are a number of year round jobs to attract people. Also how about the surrounding towns. The economic impact is more regional in these small towns and short-term rentals plays an important role in that.
This article states there are 240 STRs in Saranac Lake and compares it to the number of residences in the Village. If you click on the link provided, you will see the 240 is in a huge area, which includes most of Upper Saranac, out to Lake Clear, up to Paul Smiths, over to Rainbow Lake, within a mile of the center of Bloomingdale, all the way down to Wilmington and all of Raybrook.
To give an accurate picture, you need to consider all the homes in that whole area. When you do, you get an accurate idea of the number of STRs vs Full time residences.
Is there a problem? Yes. Crisis? Not even close.
The yoga lady is not the only one who depends on the extra income of short term rentals. I purchased a dilapidated 100 year old house that was an eyesore for the neighborhood, sat vacant for years and was in arrears several years for taxes. I planned on short term rentals from the start to help handle the mortgage and taxes. Would it have been better for economic growth if the property was still sitting vacant?
If local residents do not work for the government, there is not an abundance of wonderful jobs in the Adirondacks. If the Village of Saranac Lake is going to regulate and tax short term rentals will this create a hardship for those who depend on the supplemental income. Hopefully the Village will not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Ms. Little, the village trustee, mentioned in this article, failed to recognize one of the most significant contributors to the real estate dilemma–COVID-19. People in the cities couldn’t wait to get out and go to “the mountains”, especially since they were told not to come to office but to work from home. “Home” for many became a place on a lake or a mountain ridge in the Adirondacks. And “yes’ they brought their money with them and left it in the numerous restaurants and businesses throughout the Adirondacks. While the country was virtually shut down for a year, the entrepreneurs who had short term rentals in the Adirondacks continued to earn income, income which they in turn invested in their local communities. Should they be punished for that initiative?
Absolutely stunning how quickly folks loose track of what is making it possible for locals to survive. STRs are the basis of a Local Living Economy in tourist towns like most of the ADKs.
Ask any carpenter, plumber, house keeper, painter, restauranteur, waitress, health food store owner, bartender, architect, engineer, roofer, artist, designer, yoga teacher, florist, Baker, furniture sales person (to name a few) how busy they are since STRs are growing, they will all tell you they make a great living.
I’ve watched starving towns flourish and young people open small businesses, and housing stock improve over the past decade that STRs have been pumping up the local economy.
Big Hospitality can never share enough for the community to prosper in this way.
Make STRs more welcome and keep big hotel chains from exporting all that visitor revenue out of town.