Amid a statewide housing crisis, some people have expressed concern over how short-term rentals have affected the housing market.
Robert Sousa has served the Paso Robles community as a realtor for 15 years.
“I would say that Paso is in a housing crisis because most of the state of California and the County of San Luis Obispo is experiencing the same thing,” Sousa said.
He attributes the state of the housing market to several factors, namely the area's growing popularity.
“Paso Robles has grown so much in popularity in the last 10 to 15 years, so the lack of inventory and the demand for homes have increased prices significantly,” he said.
As more people move to Paso Robles, the inventory of available homes shrinks.
“There’s not enough coming on the market,” Sousa said. “A normal market is between 4 to 6 months of inventory and we’ve had between 2 to 2.5 months of inventory for the last year. In 2021, we had between 1 and 1.5 months of inventory. So, the shortage has been leading up for a very long time and we’re nowhere near what a healthy market would be at.”
With inventory at less than half of what it should be, supply is low and demand is high, driving housing prices up. Sousa adds that the high-interest rates aren’t helping matters either.
“I think interest rates are affecting buyers as well as people who are looking to sell their current home and take on a new mortgage. They’re not comfortable with that rate yet,” Sousa said.
While Sousa’s explanation suggests a simple supply and demand problem, some locals feel short-term rentals are to blame. Sousa said there’s evidence to suggest otherwise.
“And in the last few years, we’ve had about 575 sales within the city limits of Paso for single-family residences. About 40 of those were zoned in a way that can be used as vacation rentals or are currently vacation rentals. So 7% of our market is made up of properties that are used as vacation rentals or can be. So I don’t think that 7% is having an impact on the market,” Sousa said.
One of Sousa's recent clients did purchase a home to use as an Airbnb and says he's seen a moderate amount of business since putting his home on the short-term rental market two months ago.
“It’s been okay. I do think that October or November time in Paso Robles tends to be rather busier with harvest events going on within the city, but so far, December’s pretty slow for me and January’s rather slow, so it’s been ok,” the client said.
“I think that public perception is just frustration. I think everybody is feeling that frustration, but to say that they’re contributing to a housing crisis with the data that we’ve seen over the last two years doesn’t support that claim. It’s not justified,” Sousa concluded.
