To the editor:
Hello, neighbors. I am closely following the Great Barrington Selectboard’s conversations on short-term rentals with bewilderment and some alarm. The decisions that the board makes now – and that my fellow townspeople make at annual meeting – will determine whether or not I can afford to retire here. It’s been a familiar refrain for years that none of our children can stay in this town due to the ever-rising costs of housing. I think as a retiree in the next few years, I may well be next.
This is me – a resident of the southern Berkshires since 1989, a homeowner in Great Barrington since 1999. I have lived here with my husband of 34 years for more than half my life. My husband and I rented for a full 10 years before we could manage a downpayment on our first home. We both worked, our children were born here at Fairview Hospital, and they were educated in our area’s public schools. We may not be locals according to everyone, but we feel like this is home.
During our 10 years renting, we never paid more than $700 monthly. For a house. A whole house. Maybe not a house in a prime location or in mint condition, but a perfectly serviceable place to live for a small family. As everyone knows, that rental option no longer exists.
When we finally became homeowners in 1999, we paid $130,000 for an in-town house in move-in condition. My neighbor, who purchased an almost identical house right next to us for nearly the same price at the same time, sold his property a year ago in a bidding war for the price of $375,000. That is about what our house is worth now, so the realtors tell me. If we sell and leave town, it will not be a young family that purchases our home, unless that young family has inherited a nest egg or won the lottery. It’s not even possible to buy land now in Great Barrington for our original purchase price of $130,000.
Lucky, I guess, to have our home acquire that much value over these last 20 years. It’s not the whole story though. As our property values increased, so did lots and lots of other things. Our real estate taxes. Our utilities. Our water and sewer bills. Our homeowners insurance. In general, the cost of living, which has increased everywhere, but that is especially true here in our town. We buy local when we can, but the majority of businesses now cater to a clientele that has lots more disposable income than we do. We have worked hard to pay off our mortgage and keep pace with these rising costs over these years while working and raising children. Thank goodness for thrift stores is about all I can say on that.
Retirement, though, is where it will get complicated. Right up until the point where people in this town began to talk about curtailing short-term rentals, we thought we had a plan. We recently bought a very small condo in town so that we could do AirBnB in our family home. We figured that if we could generate enough revenue from the home we own for the next decade or so, we could safely set aside enough money to ensure our ability to head back there full time in our final days. As retirees, maybe we could do a little traveling, visit far-flung family members, and maintain a space here in town where family and friends could come visit us in turn. Then someday, when we are no longer able to climb the 43 stairs up to our new condo, maybe it could be sold to finance end-of-life care – a grim thought, but having lost parents recently, we are no strangers to just how high those costs can climb.
Since the most recent select board meeting, I have had one phrase stuck in my craw. “If 90 days of short-term rental doesn’t provide you with enough money, you’re doing something wrong.” This board member tossed out a figure of $31,000, and shook his head in disgust at the greed of some people when it comes to the dollar.
Let’s talk about what happens to that theoretical $31,000. It’s a math problem. We pay income tax on it — that’s fair as far as we’re concerned. We also pay occupancy tax to the state, and we think that’s fair too. It has been suggested that we might also be asked to pay a 3 percent short-term rental fee to the town. Actually, we’re more than happy to do that. We’ve always been sympathetic to the cause of affordable housing in this area. In fact, I was half-time executive director at Construct Inc. in the late 1990’s. I knew the problem well, and it’s significantly worse since those days. It would be wonderful if the town collected money from short-term rental fees that could help expand affordable housing options. Even though all of these fees come out of that $31,000, sure — maybe there would still be enough room to make it work.
Except that there’s more. There’s the real estate tax, the utilities, and the maintenance on the property. And my insurance company tells me that if we rent for more than 45 days in a calendar year, we need a commercial policy, quoted for us at more than $3,400 annually. At this point, our $31,000 has been whittled down by half. But then it gets dicey. A new roof? A new furnace or hot water heater? New appliances? A whole-house paint job when we can’t safely climb ladders anymore?
We would really like to try to make this work. We are proud of our beautiful home, and we love to share it. We love travelers. We have always invited Appalachian Trail hikers and long-distance cyclists to stay with us – free of charge – just because we love their stories. The idea of doing short-term rentals as a way to age in place in a town we love, doing something that we love – well, maybe it was just too good to be true.
We do get it. We get why this conversation is happening. It’s definitely a very good idea to keep people from buying up multiple properties for the sole purpose of creating a short-term-rental empire in an area where housing opportunities are limited. But that’s not what we do.
So keep it simple. People can own as many properties as they like. No one can stop people from buying property here. And who can blame them? It’s a great town. But those buyers/owners – and we don’t even have to care if they are residents or not – they just can’t use multiple properties for short-term rentals. Only one. And my goodness, get rid of the 90-day limit. Or at the very least, double that number. Otherwise, we are in your crosshairs.
Maureen E. Meier
11 George St.
Great Barrington
