On Thursday the town of Fort Myers Beach announced it was moving to a new short-term rental software. The new software will help town staff monitor short-term rentals and identify renters not following the rules.
Nearly every house and condo on Fort Myers Beach is eligible to be rented either weekly or monthly. When this was all set up decades ago there didn’t seem to be much of a system to how it was done. In fact in some cases one side of a street could be monthly rentals while the other side weekly. Monthly rentals are only allowed to rent a minimum of one week or less per month. If someone only rents that monthly for 7 or 10 days, according to the rules, that unit would have to remain empty for the rest of the month. Weekly rentals are allowed to rent once per week. So if someone rents for only 3 days that unit is supposed to remain empty for the balance of the week. If those rules are not followed the property owner faces a code violation.
Previously the town had a staff member monitoring Airbnb and VRBO in addition to taking complaints from neighbors who witnessed property owners breaking the short-term rental rules and call it into a town hotline. The new software brings everything in-house…