Category Archive : Property Management

LAS VEGAS, NV – In addition to delays in the pre-approval process on the part of Clark County and early regulations that were considered overreaching and burdensome by many, the latest hurdle that applicants for short term rentals in the Las Vegas area are encountering is difficulties in obtaining insurance. 

According to Las Vegas insurance broker Tiffany VanTuyl, Clark County’s short-term rental regulations are utilizing uncommon and confusing terminology when it comes to insurance requirements which are causing issues for her clients who are attempting to submit applications. 

The problems, VanTuyl noted, are due to the regulations that specifically state the following: “Evidence of general liability insurance in the amount of at least five hundred thousand dollars per occurrence that indicates the property is used for transient lodging.” 

The complication is with the term “transient lodging,” which VanTuyl said is not utilized in her industry and is causing a roadblock for her clients who are attempting to obtain coverage. 

No insurance company that I’m familiar with uses that term,” she said. “They use either ‘short term rentals’ or ‘seasonal lodging.’ Every company uses different terminology, so it’s not a cookie cutter coverage.” 

VanTuyl stated that she has reached out to Clark County officials about the issue, but claimed that they have been dragging their feet on assisting her with a resolution, frustrating her clients who have already experienced problems with the short-term application process. 

They did say that they wanted it to say a specific terminology and I’ve sent documents from the underwriting department of two different companies, and they have not responded yet,” she said. 

Louis Koorndyk, co-founder of the Greater Las Vegas Short Term Rental Association. said that he has also been experiencing complaints from renters who have attempted to contact the county over the confusing terminology and have often received conflicting information in response. 

Whoever picked up the line at Clark County will say it absolutely has to say, ‘transient lodging,’ it cannot say seasonal,” Koorndyk said. “Then somebody else will make that exact same phone call and get different information, ‘yes, it may say seasonal.’ So, we have this confusion going on.” 

Clark County officials approved approximately 1,200 short-term rental pre-applications in May, allowing those individuals to proceed with the process of acquiring a full rental license. 

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Clark County will be sending out notices to potential short-term rental applicants following the recent conclusion of a random lottery drawing, with anyone who submitted a pre-application slated to receive their results within eight weeks via certified mail and e-mail; an extended span of time that is causing frustration for many would-be renters.

Among those who pre-applied to run a short-term rental within the confines of Clark County, 1,169 of those applications were deemed as eligible, whereas 137 were declared ineligible.

Among the reasons for failing to qualify as a short-term operator that were cited by county officials included the property being located within 2,500 feet of a resort hotel; being located outside of unincorporated Clark County; being located in an ineligible township; and being located within a building that is classified as a timeshare or vacation home.

Despite the fact that county regulations mandate that all licensed short-term rentals maintain a minimum distance of 1,000 feet from one another, no distance requirements were mentioned after the lottery drawing.

The 1,169 pre-applicants who were successfully drawn in the lottery will be allowed to submit an official application to become licensed as a short-term rental owner operator upon receipt of their notice.

However, the eight-week delay in the notices going out is causing confusion among pre-applicants who are uncertain whether or not to begin making plans for the future, according to Greater Las Vegas Shorter Term Rental Association co-founder Louis Koorndyk.

“The host community is very frustrated with Clark County. They’re trying to make plans; they’re trying to plan their future. They’re trying to figure out, what do we do with this property?” he said. “Expedia has been reaching out to us and asked us questions. They’ve even emailed us saying, look, we’ve seen licensing process put in effect across the country. We haven’t seen anything take this long before.”

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Members of the Nevada state legislature are currently mulling over legislation that, if passed, would institute a ceiling on the amount that landlords could increase the rent of their tenants, with the cap tied to the local cost of living index for the rental unit’s surrounding area, a number that would be determined by the Nevada State Housing Authority.

In addition, the legislation in its current form would also mandate that landlords would be prohibited from imposing any rent increases upon a tenant during the first year they inhabit the unit in question. 

The bill – authored by Nevada State Senator Pat Spearman – also includes language that would officially declare a housing crisis in the state if it were passed.

“A minimum-wage earner would need to work 62 hours to afford a studio apartment,” Senator Spearman said to the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee last week, adding that women and people of color are disproportionately affected by the affordability gap when it comes to housing options.

Senator Spearman also noted that approximately 30 percent of single-family homes in Nevada are currently owned by investors.

While several groups have come out in support of Spearman’s legislation, there is also a fair amount of opposition to it as well; State Senator Jeff Stone – who rents out properties himself – expressed concern over a clause in the bill that pertains to the degree of profit a landlord can gain from their rental units.

“How do you define reasonable return on investment, when there are so many variables that different landlords have to contend with?” Stone asked, who said that simple mom and pop landlords – among whose number he counts himself – to be disproportionately affected if this bill is passed in its current form.

“To create all these bureaucratic pathways that I have to go through to justify what I can charge a tenant, not to charge 5 percent when inflation is 8.5 percent, you’re already requiring landlords to take a 3.5 percent hit,” Stone said.

Stone said another clause in the bill governing new construction does not do enough to incentivize new housing developments and only offers an advantage to large-scale investors.

“You are going to hinder investment,” he said. “And if you hinder investment, it’s going to exacerbate the supply and demand issues that we have here in Nevada.”

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Officials in Clark County Nevada unanimously voted Tuesday to amend their ordinances governing short-term rentals within its jurisdiction in order to update regulations that a judge had previously ruled to be unconstitutional.

Previously, a lawsuit filed by the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA) had resulted in a preliminary injunction being imposed by District Court Judge Jessica Peterson, who had ruled that certain aspects of Clark County’s short term rental ordinances regulating the local industry were “vague” and “unconstitutional.” 

County attorney Lisa Logsdon said this week the commissioners agreed to clean up the language in their guidelines, noting that the county “took many of the court’s suggestions in drafting these amendments to ensure that the amendments address the court’s concerns with the ordinance.”

The changes to the ordinance are as follows:

• Renters are no longer required to sign applications under penalty of perjury.
• Inspectors must now provide 48 hours’ notice before showing up to inspect a property; previously, no advance notice was required.
• Large parties are still forbidden at short term rental properties, but the previously “vague” definition of what constitutes a large party has been stricken from the regulations.
• The county will now rely on existing code that regulates noise, lighting and air-quality standards.

However, GLVSTRA President and Director Jacqueline Flores issued a statement reacting to the news of Clark County’s revisions to their ordinance, saying that she did not believe they would be sufficient to alleviate the concerns of the over 700 homeowners that her organization represents.

“Many of those amendments do very little to fix the infirmities the Court has serious issues with and in other cases the County just didn’t fix some of the Sections at all,” she said. “The County is doing very little or nothing at all to satisfy the unconstitutionality of those provisions.” 

Logsdon noted that Clark County officials are eager to arrive at an agreement that would satisfy GLVSTRA’s lawsuit, saying that the district attorney’s office had requested that the association draft a “written settlement offer” and submit it for their consideration. 

Flores responded that there was a lack of interest on the part of Clark County commissioners last month to discuss a potential settlement, but noted that if their attitude is now different, she would be willing to discuss it with them.

“If the County Commissioners have now changed their mind, then we welcome that conversation,” she said.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The Nevada Legislature last week introduced Assembly Bill 340, which, if passed, will change how landlords in Nevada can evict tenants from their properties by forcing them to first file an affidavit in court before they are allowed to start the eviction process. 

AB 340 was presented to the Nevada Legislature Assembly Judiciary Committee last Wednesday, with the sponsors of the legislation saying that its intent is to protect tenants in the state who are struggling to keep up with increases in their rent.

A local organization backing the bill, Battle Born Progress, said that it would give tenants more time to respond to an eviction request by mandating landlords to file a court order before they can serve an eviction notice.

“If a landlord needs to evict a tenant that can still happen,” said Battle Born Progress representative Will Pregman. “But there needs to be an ability for the tenant to reasonably respond to it.”

But while some groups are supporting the bill, many others are criticizing it; Derek Moellinger of Vice Realty Group, which manages apartment complexes, issued a statement condemning AB 340 while also referencing a previous piece of pandemic-era legislation – AB 486, set to expire in June – which stays an eviction proceeding if a tenant has an application for rental assistance pending.

“Landlords have been destroyed in the state because of AB 486. Now the state seeks to further damage landlords with this new bill. I am an investor and I manage almost 1000 properties and I will not put one dollar of my own money into Nevada,” he said. “I counsel every one of my investors to move out of this state and move to a state that actually has fair eviction laws. Right now, in Nevada a tenant can claim to have applied for rental assistance and with that claim, whether true or not, the eviction process will take a minimum of six months and can go as long as a year. During that entire time, the landlord receives no money; and when the tenant finally moves out, the landlord has no recourse to regain any of that lost money. The tenant can then break back into the unit and it is not considered a crime. It’s a civil matter, and the landlord must go back to court and try to remove this person again.”

“These are the kinds of laws that landlords have to deal with in Nevada right now and it’s insane to me that the state wants to further punitively damage landlords when housing is the scarcest resource Nevada has,” Moellinger continued. “You have Investors like me and my friends who have millions of dollars at their disposal and refuse to spend a dollar of it in Nevada anymore. We used to be the reasons blocks were repaired and we were the reason tenants were placed. We were the reason things improved for low-income people. Now it’s a disaster in this state and it’s only going to get worse because the state is chasing away the only people who are willing to actually make a difference, which are owners.”

AB 340 would have to be approved by the state assembly and senate before it could be signed into law by Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Last week, Clark County held a lottery to rank applicants for potential licenses to operate short term rentals via services such as Airbnb and Vrbo, although a group representing rental operators criticized the drawing, calling it unnecessary and confusing.

Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA) President Jacqueline Flores complained about the lottery, essentially calling it a waste of time.

“It is important to highlight that the Clark County Short Term Rental Lottery today will serve no purpose other than to merely establish the order in which applications will be reviewed by the County staff,” she said. “This is not what will ultimately determine who will get a license.”

The lottery, which was held on March 29 in a closed-door meeting that was streamed online and broadcast on local public television stations, placed the 1,306 forms that the county had received over the course of a six-month application process into a “random number selector.” However, while officials have yet to reveal how many licenses they will ultimately grant to applicants, they have clarified that they will not exceed 1 percent of the county’s existing “housing stock.”

The lottery – carried out by Smartplay International Inc., with the results tallied by consulting firm Baker Tilly U.S. LLP – took place despite a preliminary injunction having been imposed by District Court Judge Jessica Peterson, who had ruled that certain aspects of Clark County’s short term rental ordinances regulating the local industry where “vague” and “unconstitutional.”

That injunction came as a result of a lawsuit filed against the county by GLVSTRA, which has petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court to rule on the case. Currently, Clark County officials are attempting to make changes to the short-term rental ordinances that were struck down by the District Court judge last month.

Before Clark County began the process of establishing legal short-term rentals within its boundaries, officials estimated that there had been previously as many as 10,000 homes without permits being rented out illegally.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Despite the fact that Clark County officials have recently stated they plan to make changes to some of the rules governing the short-term rental industry within their jurisdiction, that doesn’t appear to be enough for the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA), which has announced they want the Nevada Supreme Court to rule on whether or not the short-term regulations county officials have laid in place are constitutional or not.

GLVSTRA has been engaging in a legal battle with Clark County regarding what they refer to as overly strict and intrusive ordinances put in place regarding homes rented through services such as Airbnb and Vrbo. In February, District Court Judge Jessica Peterson ruled that aspects of the ordinances are unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction to temporarily block them.

Sections of Clark County’s ordinances that Peterson declared unconstitutional included a clause that mandated that those seeking to establish a short-term rental must sign their application under penalty of perjury; in addition, random inspections of rental properties with no notice, vague definitions over what is considered a “party” or a “disturbance,” and the ability of the county to issue “discretionary fines and penalties” were also temporarily struck down by last month’s ruling.

Despite clearing that legal hurdle, GLVSTRA appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court this week because they say their full array of claims against Clark County were not addressed by the District Court Judge’s ruling, according to GLVSTRA President Jacqueline Flores.

Flores said that her organization takes particular exception to Clark County’s use of a lottery system to determine which short-term rental applicants will be granted licenses, in addition to requirements mandating specific minimum distances between rental properties and hotels.

Despite attempts to sit down and hash things out with Clark County officials, Flores said the two sides were unable to come to a fair and equitable arrangement, thus necessitating the organization’s move to appeal the case to the state’s highest court.

“We have been trying to work with the county commissioners in good faith and they have refused to do that so far,” Flores said. “We need a Nevada Supreme Court ruling. That way we’re able to address all those municipalities at the same time, and ultimately the entire state.”

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – In an effort to crack down on potentially disruptive and loud partying during spring break season, Las Vegas police have been conducting unannounced and random spot checks on short term rental properties to ensure that occupants are adhering to local laws and ordinances and not creating a disturbance for their neighbors. 

Reports indicate that police have been showing up to properties rented out through services such as Airbnb and Vrbo throughout the city and unexpectedly knocking on doors, reminding the short-term renters within that holding loud parties or allowing underage drinking is illegal and will be enforced if encountered by authorities. 

Police noted that the large increase in spot checks is a common department policy during periods of time such as spring break where excessive partying is anticipated. 

However, the validity of the spot checks have been questioned by the Greater Las Vegas Short Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA), with the organization claiming they have not been receiving any complaints from neighbors of short-term rental properties in the city.  

At a time when Las Vegas faces a shortage of police officers, the county should be far more interested and concerned on using these officers to answer emergency calls from residents and reducing response time for far more serious issues in the Valley,” GLVSTRA said. 

Proposed rules and ordinances governing Airbnb and Vrbo rentals have been a regular bone of contention between Clark County officials and the short-term rental industry. In particular, Clark County has ordinances in place that ban holding large parties, weddings, and other events on short-term rental properties where the attendance would exceed the maximum occupancy limit of the dwelling in question. 

However, in February a Clark County District Judge ruled that the county’s definition of what constitutes a “party or wedding” was worded in a way as to make it “vague and ambiguous.” 

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Following a lawsuit filed by the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA), aspects of Clark County’s new regulations governing the local short-term rental industry have been ruled by a District Court judge as being unconstitutional.

GLVSTRA’s lawsuit sought to temporarily block a law set into place in the form of a Nevada legislature bill known as AB 363, which added new ordinances in June 2022 regulating short term rentals in the state. In turn, unincorporated Clark County was subsequently tasked with handling oversight of the industry within its borders and was mandated to create their own set of regulations.

However, GLVSTRA founder Jackie Flores said that the new regulations – both on a local and state level – clearly infringe upon the rights of property owners who wish to rent out their residences via services such as Airbnb and Vrbo.

Last week, Judge Jessica Peterson granted GLVSTRA a temporary injunction. The regulations that have been ruled unconstitutional include signing the business license application under penalty of perjury, inspections with little or no notice, vague definitions of what constitutes a “party” or a disturbance, and the issuance of “discretionary fines and penalties.”

“The Court specifically finds that certain provisions within the Ordinance are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad and fail to provide notice sufficient to enable a person of ordinary intelligence to understand what conduct is prohibited,” Judge Peterson wrote in her ruling. “Accordingly, the provisions of the Ordinance identified in this Order shall hereinafter be enjoined from enforcement and implementation.”

However, the injunction does not stop Clark County from issuing licenses, with the six-month application process concluding in March; over 500 individuals have applied for a short-term rental license so far.

Judge Peterson’s orders are separate from GLVSTRA’s lawsuit. The next steps in the organization’s lawsuit are currently not known.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – After months and months of skyrocketing rent increases that drove very real affordability concerns, the rental market in Las Vegas has finally begun to show signs of stabilizing in a positive manner.

While units are still being leased at a healthy rate in Vegas and landlords are still purchasing buildings and developers are constructing new projects, rent increases have been dialed back and tenants have even begun to negotiate rental rates once again, a tactic that was pretty much nonexistent for the past couple of years, experts say.

Whereas rent hikes of anywhere from $200 to $1,000 were the norm during the pandemic, increases as of late appear to be “on hold.” At the end of 2022, the average monthly rent for a Southern Nevada apartment was $1,422, a decrease of just one percent year-over-year; in contrast, rents in Vegas jumped a whopping 22 percent in 2021.

This echoes the real estate situation throughout the United States, which overall reported three months in a row where rents either held steady or even decreased, indicating that there is some degree of breathing room in the market these days.

In addition, with the national economy currently in rough shape – along with a looming recession – people have been leery about the idea of moving, resulting in more rental units sitting empty for longer periods of time. For example, in early 2022 Las Vegas rental properties would last on the market no more than 14 days; today, that average is closer to 30 to 45 days.

The rental market in Las Vegas exploded during the pandemic as tenants – including an influx of new residents to the city – looked for more space amid widespread work-from-home arrangements. Investors sat up and took notice, purchasing 199 apartment complexes in Southern Nevada in 2021, and twice the number in 2020.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Clark County has begun to seriously ramp up enforcement of its rules that forbid illegal short-term rentals within its boundaries according to the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA), issuing significant financial punitive measures against over 200 violators thus far.

GLVSTRA co-founder Luis Koorndyk noted that Clark County – between July 1 and November 23, 2022 – has so far issued 217 citations with fines and liens, with some reaching as high as $750,000.

“Everyday we’re hearing a story,” he said. “They’ve been fairly consistent, but in the last three- or four-months, enforcement seems to have really ramped up.”

Those looking to operate a short-term rental within the confines of Clark County have until March 13 to submit an application into a lottery that will ultimately issue 2,800 licenses, which means that only a limited number of applicants will be chosen.

Currently, the specific date that the licenses will be issued has not yet been revealed, but enforcement measures have been in effect for several months now. Individuals currently operating short-term rentals in Clark County – such as through services as Airbnb and Vrbo – without licenses are deemed to be doing so illegally and are subject to fines.

Koorndyk noted that the number of short-term rental landlords which have been fined so far only represents a small fraction of those who have been operating illegally.

“We’re looking at 98 percent of all operators, code enforcement doesn’t even know where they are, because they’re not being turned in,” he said. “They’re not being turned in because there are outstanding operators. That’s only 2 percent that they have a problem with.”

Currently, enforcement of illegal short-term rentals in Clark County consists of fines ranging from a minimum of $1,000 a day to a maximum of $10,000 a day.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The owners of short-term rentals and members of the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association (GLVSTRA) were granted a preliminary injunction last week against Clark County regulations governing the local industry they criticized as being “stricter than required by state law.”

Clark County commissioners had imposed numerous regulations upon short-term rental hosts including occupancy limits, minimum stays, distance separation, and their responsibilities as rental operators; some of the ordinances that hosts took exception to include the following: 

• Not more than one percent of housing in the county can operate as short-term rentals
• No more than one license per person
• Maximum occupancy of two people per bedroom or 10 people per unit
• Bookings must be a minimum of two nights
• Minimum two-night stay for every reservation
• Not within 1,000 feet of an existing short-term rental
• Hosts must allow the County to inspect the residential units without advance notice
• Misdemeanor citations for violations of this ordinance, thus opening the possibility of criminal liability for issues as minor as the placement of trash 

Hosts in Clark County – who have been applying for licenses rent out their homes through services such as Airbnb and VRBO – berated the regulations, saying that they interfered with their ability to run a successful business.

In November 2021 short-term rental owners and GLVSTRA sued Clark County, with GLVSTRA founder Jackie Flores saying that their property rights were violated by the regulations.

“Our position is that both the state law and the Clark County ordinance just goes too far where it’s actually violating people’s constitutional rights and freedoms,” Flores said at the time. “They have a provision in the ordinance that says any Count Official can come to your private home at any time whenever they feel like it and for whatever they want and you have to let them in your property. You have to let them in your house and we felt like that was like you’re going way too far.”

Last week a judge granted a preliminary injunction against Clark County, preventing the ordinances from being enforced pending a comprehensive review by the court to determine if indeed the rights of rental owners are being violated or not.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.