I thought short term rental was ban in Santa Cruz years ago, as a coworker at the time bought into it and a year later, short term rental got banned....She took a big hit at the time because RE prices tanked because of that legislation.....
Short term vacation rentals are in flux within Santa Cruz. To be explicit, I am referring to a residential home, duplex or portion of a home which is rented for less than 30 days.
To start, "Santa Cruz" is both the city and county. Each city, as well as the county itself has its own regulation.
Santa Cruz city just put a moratorium at the end of 2016 on the creation of NEW vacation rentals which are not occupied by the owner (you can still rent space within your home, or an ADU), which will run through May 2017 while they draft long term regulation. For more specifics: http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/departments/short-term-vacation-rental-stvr
Santa Cruz County will allow up to 20% of the parcels within a “block” to be designated as short term rentals. This covers live oak, Seacliff, Aptos and a bunch of other pretty nice beach towns. Permits are valid for 5 years. The application requires full schematics of the property (fun times). http://www.sccoplanning.com/PlanningHome/ZoningDevelopment/VacationRentals.aspx
Most of the mountain towns, Scotts Valley, Felton, Boulder Creek… have no regulations that I am aware of.
If by short term you mean vacation rentals..yes thats legal but there are regulations and an 'occupancy tax' Im prretty sure. I dont do that personally, but check on SC tax collectors page.
Short term vacation rentals are in flux within Santa Cruz. To be explicit, I am referring to a residential home, duplex or portion of a home which is rented for less than 30 days.
To start, "Santa Cruz" is both the city and county. Each city, as well as the county itself has its own regulation.
Santa Cruz city just put a moratorium at the end of 2016 on the creation of NEW vacation rentals which are not occupied by the owner (you can still rent space within your home, or an ADU), which will run through May 2017 while they draft long term regulation. For more specifics: http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/departments/short-term-vacation-rental-stvr
Santa Cruz County will allow up to 20% of the parcels within a “block” to be designated as short term rentals. This covers live oak, Seacliff, Aptos and a bunch of other pretty nice beach towns. Permits are valid for 5 years. The application requires full schematics of the property (fun times). http://www.sccoplanning.com/PlanningHome/ZoningDevelopment/VacationRentals.aspx
Most of the mountain towns, Scotts Valley, Felton, Boulder Creek… have no regulations that I am aware of.
Shane - thanks for spending the time to educate... If I may pick your brain a little bit more -
1. I checked VRBO for Santa Cruz city yesterday, and 142 listing available for next week....Sounds like so much supply that you would think a lot of vacancy then?
2. These coastal smallish towns, from Santa Cruz, to Aptos, to Capitola, to Pacific Grove, to Carmel, they are so pretty but they are so expensive!!!!!!????? What is supporting such high level of RE prices? I mean I can understand why Bay Area is expensive.... Jobs....But these coastal towns do not have all these corporate jobs, so where do they get their money to pay their mortgage?
#1. There is more than enough tourism to support them. The boardwalk alone sees over 3M visitors during their primary season. The ocean, mountains and university are also solid draws.
#2. Santa Cruz has a diverse set of economic drivers
Tourism (as mentioned above) it significant.
Santa Cruz is a satellite of the valley job wise. My wife worked at google before our latest kid. Apple, google, facebook and other have buses that do the 45m commute (not that big a deal). Amazon has actually set up office in downtown Santa Cruz. Over 20,000 people commute the 17 to the valley daily.
UC Santa cruz has 17,000 students + the associated economic infrastructure & research offshoots. They have the world's top genomics center, and a number of startups birthed from its research.
The county also has enormous agricultural base, with companies like driscol, martinelli's...
The action sports industry is centered here with Oneill, Santa Cruz bikes, Giro helmets, Surftech and a number of other global brands. The surf is some of the best and most consistent in the world, as well as some of the best mt bike trails in the us.
Tie all that together with extremely limited space, a highly conservative planning department, and demand exceeds supply.
In short, I consider the core cities in the county a very good long term hold.