From the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana:

Indianapolis registry to crack down on short-term rental parties starts up in 2025:

As a record year of Indianapolis tourism comes to a close, an industry growing with the increased number of visitors is getting some new regulation. A new Indianapolis ordinance will create a registry of short-term rental owners in the city and create a three strike system to hold owners accountable for disruptive and dangerous activities on their properties.

NE, They've been doing this to LTR since the 90s in Rochester NY. It's called the point system. If they find so much as a crack baggie on your lawn, the property OWNER gets assigned points until they can eminent domain you. Then the wrecking ball swings and you get one of those wooden posts put up on the lot (indicating property of Rochester NY).

Mapleaf18, wouldn't it just involve a quit claim deed to be recorded showing a new owner?

I have STR in a resort area .... the town just implemented STR permitting . Owner pays 10 cents a sq/ft for the permit. AND an additional 3% hotel tax (13% total). But what hurt was the permit restricts the number of peeps allowed in the property ... 2 per bedroom. Then AIRBNB made me adjust my listing to reflect the permitted number of peeps.

There is areas of FL that is banning outright STR. In Sarasota, a group of investors bought a small house... tore it down... built it with the SOLE purpose of STR, but told county/city its just a house. Oops. Now they have 3 families staying and there is 7 cars trying to park (room for 3 cars, max). Parties all night. When the neighbors live in 5M+ retirement homes, guess who has time to complain to govt officials? Yep, the retired person. Didn't take long, but no more STR on that island. No grandfather clauses either from understanding.

A few thoughts:

Owners of STR's should not really want partiers in the first place. Not only will they disturb the neighbor's peace but will destroy your property. Owners should screen well, have good clauses in their contract with rules and consequences for breaking them, and have some sort of watch on the property.

The city knows they are more likely to get more money and cooperation out of owners than partiers.

Question of the day: Does the constitution have any weight today?

If the land trust is done correctly, then it could possibly be as easy as Robin stated. However, I am still learning on this.

That stated, the next thing will be the elimination of land trust.

Glad I never did the STR thing either. I get it. When done correct, it's good $.

I am pretty sure I saw that our governor is doing that with STR here. I'm not sure if it's a state wide thing or they opened it up to a County option (or city, town, etc) or if it's State definitely and then the options, etc.

I don't do them. I know people who have and are but Airbnb pays attention to the renter... NOT the owner. so when a guest complains about anything Airbnb hammers the owner. Even if it's false.

The city here implemented this in September of '24. Pretty much was just a cash grab. $275 to get a special use permit for a STR. Then, you get to pay another $250/year for a license. No inspection, just continue to operate as normal. Total was of time for property owner and city workers. However, they were nice enough to hire an outside firm to monitor all STR rentals on the various websites. They are comparing to the list of folks that have gotten their license and shutting it down if you don't.

Not a solution, but FWIW: my first thought is to be friendly with a responsible neighbor(s) who want to keep out trouble & will call YOU first, before the police.

That's good for ALL rentals.

DJ, True!! Invite the neighbors to the party!

Robin, Fines are usually attached to the LAND, not the owner.

Homeowners don't get fined for parties, just told to keep it down.

And what exactly is a "party"?

Overall, my new buzzphrase - follow the money.

Publicity among LLs telling how proitable it is has caught the eye of city leaders.

Mayor: Who can we tax to bring in more tax dollars?

Tons of posts online say AirBnb's are making tons of money. Yup, they'll pay to keep them running.

How much can we charge?

Keep adding fees until owners start dropping out.

(kinda like us LLs raising the rent until people stop applying.)

PS

At Convention 2 years ago someone presented noise sensors, like smoke detectors, theat send the LL an alert over XX decibels of sound.

Many resort areas have long term housing shortages. This was the claim where my STR is. The permitting process was put in place to allow the town to gauge the housing supply.

Many resort areas have long term housing shortages. This was the claim where my STR is. The permitting process was put in place to allow the town to gauge the housing supply.

I can't find the actual text of this law that includes any "3 strikes" language. The news are reporting it, but I can't find the actual law. I did find the text of the registration part, but it had no "3 strikes" language in it at all. So, I'm curious to read what it ACTUALLY says.

It looks like the main issue here was that they kept having problems with tenants in STRs and had NO CONTACT information for the owners! I actually agree that is a problem. It isn't fair to neighbors and police that they are trying to deal with repeated problem partiers -- and have no way to contact whoever owns the STR.

Bad landlords are who have caused this to happen. They purposely hid their ownership so that they couldn't be contacted -- and then allowed partiers to rent their STRs and cause neighborhood problems.

I don't agree with the "3 strikes" thing (although I'd like to actually READ what they mean by that first) -- but I do kinda agree with the registry. I don't think it is right that the police can't even find out who to contact regarding a problem tenant.

I get that we want to remain as anonymous as possible sometimes -- but I don't think it is right that even the police can't find out who to contact regarding a rental issue.

NE- From my understanding and through grapevine.... a handful of homeowners scheduled meetings from mayor office and ALL county councilman. Before they ever met with them, had signatures from a good chunk of the neighbors. Had the local newspaper lined up writing articles about this house and "growing" problem of STR soon after the meetings.

Most of these homes are 3M+ on the "poor side" of the island.. ocean side 5M+. My guess, on a per sq ft basis... highest property taxes paid in the county. Those STR owners didn't stand a chance. Everything was lined before the first news article was written and brought before the board to be heard. There was small signs everywhere and stating "no STR"

Kind of think about it, if you can afford a 3M+ house and be retired... you were mighty successful at something. Be business, trading stocks, engineer, something. You are not a dumb redneck... they know how to persuade the local politicians into their point of view.

I was on the advisory board for our township as the only landlord when they wanted to created some mega check list. I was able to help in scaling it back.

Now it is registry of who to reach out to in the event of an emergency or complaint, a section where the operator shows they paid the bed tax to the tourism bureau and a check sheet of safety items.

That list: Max occupancy, max parking, address clearly labeled both inside and out, smoke detector, and CO Detector. All safety items are self-certified unless the operator proves that they can't take that task on honestly.