The California Assembly advanced a bill restricting the listing of some short-term coastal home rentals in coastal San Diego County on home-sharing sites, moving the measure that could be a model for other states another step closer to reaching Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk for signing into law in the nation's most populous state.
Assembly Bill 1731, sponsored by Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner Horvath, an Encinitas Democrat, would prohibit owners of second homes and investment properties from listing them on home-share listing sites such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway if the owners are not present on the property most of the time.
"We talk all the time about increasing supply but we spend very little time addressing the removal of supply from the housing market," Boerner Horvath told the Assembly. "Homes intended for families and seniors and veterans and working families are removed, often permanently, from the housing stock for full-time short-term vacation rentals."
The state's hotel industry is closely watching the legislation because it could increase demand for lodging, and by extension retail property in the same areas, by removing one alternative for vacationers and other travelers.
It also is the latest reaction to the disruption to the rental industry in the past decade by short-term rental websites across the country.
