Two Rivers’ new community development director wants to look at what groups own homes in the Cool City.
Jeff Sachse answered a question from a resident during WOMT’s Be My Guest program about short-term rental properties in the city.
He explained that the issue is not just a problem in Two Rivers, but one across the country.
However, being close to water does play a role.
“And so as a consequence, those rental homes are going to be located closer to full-time residents,” he noted. “We don’t have those designated pools of lakefront homes that are just around the lake, and then everybody else away from the water is where they are.”
Sachse also says the affordability in the city plays a role.
However, the Cool City takes a very conservative approach to who’s allowed to own a short-term rental property in the city.
Although it may seem like a lot, Sachse explains that things are changing.
He told the listener, “We are actually seeing a decrease in short-term rentals, year-over-year, in the city. And a lot of the reason why is that for a lot of the operators that are in the market, they’re finding it’s less of a headache, frankly, to rent their properties to long-term tenants.”
To determine what more can be done about short-term rentals and those who run them, the Community Development Department will conduct a study to identify who owns multiple properties in the city and which properties are vacant.
Sachse says he knows that there’s inventory that’s not on the market now that should be, and he wants to get those single-family homes on the market.
He explained, “It’s also a matter again to of educating the realtor community that since most of the properties that are being sold right now, the ones that people are complaining about, are being sold to a private seller, not even being listed.”
The study will begin sometime in January. The city council passed an ordinance regulating short-term rentals earlier this year.
