Our Price Setting and Listing Policies
We describe here our pricing policy for “Alta Vista,” “Bella Vista,” and “Casa Pacis,” and 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 vacation renting concept. Seeing our valued renting guests charged horrendous fees, commissions, and taxes in addition to our own fair pricing is, in our view, unconscionable.
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.
At this time, in a world-wide economic paradigm that must shift from growth orientation to a sustained-level economy, the micro-market of renting vacation rental properties should function without an intermediary that takes one-fifth of the revenue for objectively doing very little in return. Additionally, these 3rd party brokers essentially function as if they are the owners of the properties that we list on their platforms. The only viable option to keep vacation renting affordable is, as we see it, to go back to handling bookings primarily ourselves, via our acviews website, and thus not charging our renting guests fees and commissions.
Topping this, the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) charged by Sonoma County and the Town of Truckee are ever-increasing, and expensive and unreasonably cumbersome STR licensing procedures have been introduced and will become mandatory on 4/11/2025. 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. In response, beginning on 4/11/2025, we will very likely have phased out of the short-term rental market altogether and facilitate only 31-night “medium-term” rentals that are not subject to STR licensing and taxation.
We lean on our valued renting guests to book their next vacation 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 ask for your understanding when we increase the minimum rental period from 4 to 14 nights, with the OFFER TO OUR VALUED GUESTS that for the regular bottom-line pricing for 14 nights we add 17 more nights at no additional charge and thus bring the rental contract to 31 nights and, thus, 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).
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