Our Price Setting and Listing Policies

We describe here our pricing policy for “Alta Vista” and “Casa Pacis,” and explain why we are now predominantly taking bookings only via our own website, “ACViews.com.” See also HERE for more details.

The high fees charged by Airbnb and VRBO (and others, such as TripAdvisor) to our renting guests — as well as to ourselves as hosts — have become a thorn in our traditional vacation renting concept which is guided by affordability. Seeing third-party brokers charge our valued renting guests horrendous fees, commissions, and taxes in addition to our own fair pricing is, in our view, untenable.

About 20% commissions and fees are charged by Airbnb and VRBO.

About 15% TOT taxes and HOA fees are imposed.

Thus, our guests end up paying upwards of 35% in taxes and broker charges.

In addition, we as owners are being charged commissions and credit card fees.

In a world-wide economic paradigm that must shift to a sustained-level economy, the micro-market of renting vacation rental properties should function without an intermediary that takes as much as one-third of the revenue for objectively doing very little in return. Additionally, 3rd party brokers (in particular VRBO and Airbnb) essentially act as if they are the owners of the properties that we list on their platforms. Instead, we, as owners, have to do all rental arrangements, and perform efforts for housekeeping and scheduling, hot tub service, property maintenance, repairs, and on and on, and pay for everything, such as property taxes, HOA fees, ever rising insurence premiums, water, electricity, refuse pick-up, Internet service, TV service, hot tub maintenance, quarterly tax returns for the rental activity, and on and on.

The only viable option to keep vacation renting affordable is then, as we see it, to circumvent third-party agents altogether and go back to handling bookings primarily ourselves, via our own ACViews website, and thus assure that our valued renting guests will not be charged any such senseless fees and commissions.

Airbnb and VRBO represent to our guests that they do “something good” for their money. But even that is questionable. We owners are the ones who communicate with our guests, and who accommodate their special needs and wishes. We are the ones who, if needed, issue correct financial inaccuracies. Since it is our interest to keep our good clientele happy, we are the ones who will offer better assurances to our guests than the 3rd-party enablers. We are small enough to thoroughly deal with a special situation. We are at the other end of a phone line when our guests have a question, not some AI voice or “Help Center” or an endless phone tree that never ends up with a human being or, if it does, with a person who knows nothing. We are the ones who can accommodate cancellations or date changes or special wishes of our guests much better than VRBO or Airbnb ever will.

Topping this, the Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) charged by Sonoma County and the Town of Truckee are ever-increasing in percentage, while they arguably do not benefit our renting guests in any tangible way. In addition, expensive and unreasonably cumbersome STR licensing procedures have been introduced that appear to have only one intended purpose, which is to discourage vacation renting altogether, in favor of the established hotel sector. Sonoma County instituted mandatory licensing on 4/11/2025. To get this license is — to express it mildly — ridiculously complicated and expensive. We complied, but — without knowing any actual statistics — we can only assume that many owners of vacation homes did not comply, and they either continue to offer their homes in the market as they did for years or decades before, but now legally non-conforming, or they resigned and withdrew from the market, making affordable vacation rentals more scarce.

Additionally, the requirements and mechanics for the quarterly TOT tax returns have become so convoluted that many hosts can no longer do this accounting themselves and must contract it out to expensive accountants. Particular hurdles are that Airbnb, and now also VRBO, must collect and pay the TOT directly to Sonoma County, which renders the reconciliation of quarterly rental finances for hosts really difficult. As a point in case, the 1st Q 2025 tax return for Casa Pacis took me an extra-long afternoon just to reconcile an accounting snafu by VRBO when they charged our guest the wrong housekeeping fee and I had refunded the excess fee to that guest.

In response to all of these difficulties, charges, and inconveniences, beginning on 4/11/2025 we have phased out renting via Airbnb and VRBO altogether and concentrate on rentals via “ACViews” exclusively. We now lean on our valued renting guests to book their next vacations in Sea Ranch and Tahoe-Donner on the acviews platform (you can go directly to https://www.acviews.com/booking-form) and thus pay the lowest reasonable, affordable net rates.

Furthermore, we now offer very affordable “medium-term” rentals (longer than 14 nights) where guests will not have to pay TOT taxes. To accomplish this, if guests book 14 nights at regular rates, we add 17 more nights at no additional charge and thus bring the rental contract to 31 nights, i.e., into the STR-exempt zone. (This benefit is, of course, only available when, at the time of booking, the reservations calendar shows availability of 31 contiguous nights that include the 14 requested nights; it is, therefore, advisable to make your reservation early).

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Also falling under the perview of price setting we humbly point out that ownership of a vacation rrental property has become really expensive. Insurance premiums have skyrocketed. The Counties now require periodic expensive safety inspections. The vacation rental license costs upwards of $500 annually. Earlier this year we incurred a $9000 septic system repair for Casa Pacis. In late 2024 we performed a $20,000 repair/maintenance of Casa Pacis, most of which work is not even openly visible to renting guests. Electricity rates have shot through the roof. The expense for maintaining the vegetation for fire safety around the vacation home has doubled. Even the basic cost of garbage removal, now prescribed by the county as part of the vacation rental license, went “through the ceiling.” All this occurred while we kept our nightly rate well below the standard for what we offer.

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4/20/25