Short-term rentals are eating into the existing housing supply in Utah’s centers of tourism, according to a pair of researchers, but, they add, getting rid of those rentals isn’t the answer to the housing crisis.
The growth of the listings — often used as an alternative to hotels for tourists — has “accelerated significantly” in recent years, said Moira Dillow, a housing, real estate and construction analyst at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
Dillow and Gardner Institute senior researcher Dejan Eskic took a comprehensive look at where short-term rentals are concentrated in Utah and how they affect the state’s housing supply.
While short-term rentals, they found, are a small portion of the state’s overall housing supply, Summit and Grand counties — with their proximity to summer and winter recreation — are losing existing housing to the vacation listings.
But those listings are only a small piece of the state’s housing crisis, Eskic said, and removing them from the equation isn’t a solution.
“Even if we banned all short-term rentals today, we still have a housing shortage,” Eskic told reporters during a roundtable event on Wednesday.
There are other potential solutions, he said, such as building workforce housing and setting up specific areas for short-term rentals to help manage them.
The number of dwellings rented out in the short term — for a day or a week, as opposed to apartments leased by the month — has exploded in Utah, with around 10,000 listings added statewide between 2019 and 2023, according to county tourism profiles compiled by the Gardner Institute.
There were more than 23,000 listings for entire housing units in 2023, according to research by Dillow and Eskic.
Those short-term rentals do provide positive impacts on communities, they found, like local tax revenue.
Short-term rentals account for millions in business in Utah a year – about $130 million for Airbnb hosts alone in 2019, according to the company.
But there also are drawbacks to short-term rentals, the report reads, including a reduction in the availability of long-term housing that residents can afford.
The effects of short-term rentals vary across the state because the saturation isn’t even.
Listings make up 1.8% of the statewide housing stock, but that number varies widely by county.
In 2023, short-term rentals made up 0.1% of the housing stock in Box Elder County and 23.8% of the housing stock in Summit County.
They were 1% or less of the housing stock in 13 counties, including Carbon, Duchesne and Morgan counties, but more than 5% in Garfield, Grand, Kane, Rich, Summit and Wayne counties.
And they are increasing quickly in counties popular with tourists. For every 10 new residential units in 2023, there were 10 or more new short-term rental listings in Grand and Summit counties. There were fewer than seven new short-term rentals for every ten new residential units in every other county.
It’s “no surprise” that there are higher concentrations in tourism-heavy counties, Dillow said — especially in Summit County with Park City Mountain Resort and proximity to other winter recreation and Grand County with its proximity to Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park and various state parks and national monuments.
In 2023, 83.1% of listings were located within 10 miles of a state park, national park or national monument, 24.9% were located within a quarter of a mile of a ski resort, and nearly half of all listings were within 10 miles of a ski area.
‘Still going to be Summit County prices’
And there is a certain attractiveness of a short-term rental in areas where there is seasonal demand, Dillow said.
“It allows people to fluctuate those prices instead of just having steady rent,” she said.
The average daily rate for short-term rentals in Summit County is $689.16, according to the county tourism profiles from Gardner Institute, and units have an occupancy rate of 41.6%. The median monthly gross rent there for housing units is $1,822.00, according to American Community Survey data.
That means someone could make $21,864.00 off a one-year lease — or $103,887.42 in one year at the average daily rate and typical occupancy.
But even if people wanted to be landlords instead of hosts, Eskic said, it’s “unlikely” that converting short-term rentals into permanent housing would help increase the supply because most of the listings aren’t in areas where people are moving.
“Even if you released all of those for sale, they’re still going to be Summit County prices,” he added about the short-term rentals in Park City and the surrounding areas.
Though banning short-term rentals wouldn’t help, Eskic said, there are solutions.
“I think every single tourism county has opportunities for workforce housing,” he said.
Workforce housing is generally defined as housing that is affordable for those earning between 80% and 120% of AMI, or area median income. AMI for Utah as a whole is $60,800 for an individual and $86,800 for a family of four, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and varies by county and city.
Officials and companies in tourism counties are working to build workforce housing.
Vail, which owns Park City Mountain Resort, has a few hundred units of employee housing in Slopeside Village at the base of The Canyons. Rooms, billed every other week, are advertised at a rate of $303 to $340 for shared space and $318 to $340 for a single room.
And the Utah Housing Corporation — an agency that says it aims to address housing needs in Utah — is developing workforce housing in Grand County.
The Confluence Cottages, located in Arroyo Crossing just south of Moab off U.S. 191, will feature 24 units in a mix of one- and two-bedroom cottages that will rent to households making 80% to 115% of the area’s median income. That starts at $51,530 for an individual and $73,300 for a family of four.
Officials also can limit where people can list short-term rentals, Eskic said.
Grand County did so a few years ago.
The County Commission instituted zoning codes giving the county the final say over any new overnight accommodations. That overlay, passed in early 2020, also allows commissioners to consider how new overnight accommodations — including short-term rentals — affect housing supply, economic diversification, community esthetics and more.
Eskic stressed that he and Dillow didn’t dig into data around the economic benefits of tax revenues from short-term rentals and the role the listings play in the local economy or when the cons might outweigh the pros.
“What that saturation level is, I hope we never find out,” Eskic said.
Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.
