KEENE, N.Y. (WCAX) – Money is available in northern New York to encourage landlords to convert their Airbnb and other short-term rentals into long-term housing.
In the tourist hotspot of Keene, where roughly 13 percent of homes are short-term rentals, there have been housing availability issues for years. That makes it the perfect target for a new pilot conversion program.
“We want to reach folks who can maybe walk to work or the grocery store or the cafe and help that be a home base for our new residents,” said Sawyer Bailey with ADK Action, one of several area groups working to convert at least 10 short-term rentals into long term options in a handful of Essex County towns.
“We are going to be working with them for 12 months and we want to make sure it’s a really positive experience so that at the end of the pilot program, our renters and our landlords want to stay working together in leases to continue,” Bailey said.
Bailey says the nonprofits will work with property owners on upgrades and financial information, as well as provide a $2,000 stipend to help with the transition. She also says they are looking for short-term rentals near services in the towns and have less of a nightly revenue than other rentals. “We are starting to see some of the sales softening around Airbnb in this region, maybe indicating we have saturation in the market. So, we think it is very feasible for us to reach 10 properties among these five different communities,” Bailey said.
It’s a shift in property use that’s already happening in Keene. “They have taken their short-term rentals and turned them back into long-term rentals. So, that has already happened organically in our community, and if we can incentivize a few more people to do that, it is going to help,” said Teresa Cheetham-Palem, chair of the Keene Housing Task Force.
Keene Town Supervisor Joe Pete Wilson hopes it will help with affordability and availability in the heart of the Adirondacks. “We can not run a town or a hospital or a school if people can not afford to live and work here, and I think the direction we were going in, have been going in, of the increased competition to buy homes for short-term rentals, the way that drives up housing prices,” he said.
The pilot program is funded by the Adirondack Foundation and Hudson Headwaters Health Network.