The new Hawaii County Vacation rental property registration is now in force and requires owners with vacation rental properties to register via their application process. I am including a link to the County’s website where you can download the package as well as including the package as a link from my website.

The County’s website also includes the new ordinance and rules for reference. For my client’s I can also access the condo guide for reference that has floorpans that can be formatted and printed on 11” x 17” paper. What is lacking are dimensions which may be available from a property manager or others that can fill in the missing information.

The County’s process to regulate vacation rentals took 2-3 years of hearings including many opinions regarding vacation rentals in unapproved zones like agricultural areas (AG) areas. There will be many intended and unintended consequences to the new regulations. I believe one of the intended effects will be to primarily condense vacation rentals in the resort zones even though most multi family condominiums will be included in the allowed areas unless the particular condominiums specifically exclude vacation rentals in some manner.

Buyers who have purchased single family homes outside of the resort areas with the specific intention of vacation rental will now have to complete and be approved for a non conforming use permit. Future buyers will have to do the same but may be discouraged from buying (non-resort) single family homes because of the process especially if they have not been vacation rented in the past and do not currently hold a non-conforming use permit. I speculate the net effect will be to drive buyers to resort zoned properties where there are no issues. Resort condominiums in the Mauna Lani resort over $1m are currently selling for below 2006 peak pricing by a long shot making them great values in my opinion.

I will continue to monitor this issue as the process matures and will continue reporting!!

County of Hawaii Website Link

Written by Rick Oliver on May 10, 2019
Posted in: Real Estate | Tags: vacation rentals