Because in the long term, we'll all be dead.

🏠   🏠.  🏠.  🏠

A friend of mine posted a comment on Facebook that began, “Every short-term rental is a home that’s unavailable to permanent residents.” What riveted my attention, however, was her following sentence: 

“Nationwide, 40% of short-term rentals are owned by corporations and/or are used to launder money.” 

The very simple, very general definition of short-term rental is property rented out for periods of less than 31 days. The new investment craze in STRs, however, is something quite different from your neighbors having vacationers spend weekends in an apartment built over their garage or your neighbors renting out a “mother-in-law” cottage behind their house on a weekly or monthly basis. The new investment market is wealthy individuals and corporations buying up entire houses, often multiple houses. These people and corporations are not your “neighbors” in any sense of the word. They aren't even "newcomers." They only to milk the cow you so lovingly raised for as long as they can.

Until the rest of us figure out how to make finer distinctions about the kind of rentals we want in our beloved communities, we will be at the mercy of those whose only consideration is return on their money.