Discordant Houses

While I sympathize with the management company’s perspective presented in the vacation rental article, a countering viewpoint is warranted.

I have owned a home in a quiet Mesa neighborhood since 1994. It sits next to two large remodels (five and seven bedrooms), both of which used to be single-family homes. Now completely unoccupied, these upscale houses function exclusively as short-term vacation rentals, with revelers disturbing my family on a regular basis. This is a far cry from the standard trope of a middle-class owner renting out the occasional bedroom to make ends meet.

To properly analyze and fully debate this complex situation, the prevailing narrative of the owner-occupied landlord must be expanded to include these unoccupied short-term vacation rentals. These particular rentals essentially operate as hotels, but hotels without any staff on site. Mixing these types of rentals into neighborhoods of working families is a recipe for discord.