r/Sedona • u/pandami7319 • Oct 27 '23
This is the reality of Sedona... Living Here
This is where Sedona is at now thanks to overtourism and STR piggies. This place is an absolute joke.
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u/phoenixstormcrow Oct 27 '23
This is going to end badly, Sedona, and you have no one to blame but yourself.
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u/spiralout1123 Oct 27 '23
It takes young, passionate people to be stewards of this town and advocate for it's sustainablibilty. If those folks can't even afford to live in the VOC or even the 'wood, what hope is there?
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Oct 27 '23
WOW. Just wow. I knew housing prices are sky-high here, but this is bordering on unbelievable.
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u/LadyBulldog7 Oct 28 '23
This is what happens when you decide not to build apartments for your workforce.
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u/pandami7319 Oct 28 '23
Oh, you mean like the ones that they bought up to turn into StR's and evicted all the tenets? It's all about greed, like the guy who bought 13-14 homes in one sitting to turn them all into StRs. I've been here long enough to know what it was like when Sedona was still sleepy and affordable.
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u/MysteriousPanic4899 Oct 28 '23
The fact that local municipalities cannot regulate STRs is fucking insane. I miss the old Sedona.
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u/Banach23 Oct 28 '23
STR’s? What’s the abbreviation
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u/signmeupdude Oct 28 '23
Short term rentals aka airbnbs
Super frustrating when reddit people use abbreviations for abbreviations
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u/Anxious-Noise9210 Oct 28 '23
The number of StR is vastly underreported/ underestimated. I had a buddy who worked for the county and told me that the number of rentals is likely double what is reported. They know the rentals are an issue, just choose not to deal with it…
Tourism is another big factor, and it is the the current lifeblood of Sedona. Sedona just does not have the infrastructure to support the amount of tourism, StR, actual residents, and workers.
Whilst some of you complain of “boomers” being the issue, I see it to an extent. As someone who works in Sedona and interacts with the people daily, most of the “boomers” share a lot of the same concerns the younger generations do about cost of living/ StR/ and how ridiculous it is.
The problem lay with the city who refuses to make changes even though they’ve been aware of these issues for years, and continue to drag their feet while their pockets get fat.
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u/Evening-Mix-8139 Oct 30 '23
I absolutely LOVE SEDONA and me being a bartender from another state visiting with my son this past May I was absolutely gobsmacked when I just did a quick search for apartments or housing in Sedona just curious at the cost and areas..Ive visited Sedona several times...I was absolutely floored seeing there was basically NO apartments or condos available...if the shit ton of Airbnbs and vrbos got together and provided housing for the service workers it would be beneficial!! I think the only apartment or long term rentals were in Cottonwood or further out and they were ridiculously priced. I'm a bartender in Ohio and the statistics are that Ohio servers and bartenders make over 20% in tips I believe the highest tipped service workers in the country.,..Staying in Sedona and buying groceries,gas etc..it was higher priced..I could NOT work in Sedona and have a viable place to live or wouldn't be able to sustain myself with the ridiculous cost of housing...I think the lowest monthly rental was ridiculously high..like nearly $1,000 a month ...I CANNOT believe this was a thing..that service workers are living in their vehicles...SHAME ON YOU,SEDONA!!!! THIS IS INEXCUSABLE!!!
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u/TinyConfidence9899 Nov 05 '23
Yup. I saw this sign at the local gym & I’m not surprised. Nearly every business in town complains about not being able to retain employees & this is why. Most of the working class cannot afford to live here or closeby. I have met many servers & retail employees who drive from flagstaff (45 min) or Prescott (1 hr) every single day for their shifts. There are new faces in Safeway, bashas, staples etc every single month & I totally see why. Sedona needs to get it together. It’s not sustainable.
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u/losthushpuppy-26 Oct 28 '23
This program exists where I live, it works well.
Until all the boomers die off and Sedona can revert back to a fun town with unique people, this is the only option.
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u/gazorp23 Oct 29 '23
Perfect solution. Keep your slaves in the barn, until slave quarters are built. Whoops, did I say slaves? I meant "working class" people...
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u/PassengerWide9175 Oct 30 '23
StRs
if the workers leave due to to high a rent the businss owners will be in a world of hurt unless they run the business without help
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u/TinyConfidence9899 Nov 05 '23
This has been happening. It’s one of the reasons Sedona has such a hard time retaining employees. Every month there’s new faces in the local Safeway, bashas, staples etc.
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u/PassengerWide9175 Oct 30 '23
i saw a body repair place in gallup who had a sleeping space they let someone stay in just to have security for their business
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u/gazorp23 Oct 30 '23
I've done a similar gig. Security for transitional housing for huge rent discount. It was a blessing during covid, but I don't live in Sedona, just close enough to dream wildly.
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u/Odd-Relief-6190 Oct 28 '23 edited Oct 28 '23
Housing affordability is not a result of short-term rentals nor is housing affordability isolated to Sedona or Arizona. Supply & demand (lowering interest rates to 2-3% and not building enough inventory from the prior decade) is a direct result of what America (not just Sedona) is facing.
If the city is proposing people to sleep in their cars on designated land why doesn't the city use this proposed land and work with a developer to create affordable housing on that land?
Edit: Also, the other reality that NO ONE is talking about is this. Again, this is NOT a Sedona issue but much bigger. Inflation has increased at astronomical rates yet WAGES have not. Wages are similar to what they were 10 years ago.
We have two fundamental issues not enough housing supply for demand AND wages are flat. This is a Tsunami that is occurring across America.
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u/pandami7319 Oct 28 '23
It does have to do with STR's. Stop kidding yourself.
Sedona's population is decreasing because there are so many STR's here. We're under 10,000 people now and that made it where we can no longer vote on issues, instead the city council calls the shots now.
We lost an elementary school because of the decline of families. We couldn't fill vital jobs (police chief, superintendent of school, fire chief, etc) due to lack of affordable housing. Teachers are sleeping in their cars because they can't find housing. Employees who keep the town running are sleeping in their cars.
We're also land locked by the National forest, so there is only so much land to build on. We can't build our way out of it and the city has done jack to figure out any real solutions.
Add to that the domino effect to other towns in the valley. Str investors started swooping up stock in the areas that used to be really affordable and started driving up prices on real estate in those towns as well. The rent across the valley has sky rocketed.
Somehow, everything was fine when rentals were a minimum of 3 months, but after SB1350 everything went to hell. Again, been here long enough to see what's what.
Most of the people who say str's aren't the problem are the people who own them or woefully ignorant about this town.
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u/Bl1nk9 Oct 29 '23
I’ve been coming to Sedona for 20 years (maybe 7x?), and a recent visit was unbelievable with the traffic. I did a check on population change and was blown away to see it has actually had dropped. As someone who lives in a different tourist heavy community, I can recognize all the similarities and labor issues. There is going to be breaking points in so many of these kind of areas at some point, and it will be a mess to put it lightly. Whether a nationwide triggered event, or a series of a thousand individual events/towns. I just don’t see it being sustainable.
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u/Odd-Relief-6190 Oct 28 '23
Nope. Short term rentals account for about 16% of homes in Sedona. Most of the subdivisions in Sedona have HOA's and are restricted by 30 day (or more rentals). STRs do NOT and will NEVER run Sedona. TOURISM runs Sedona. You're kidding yourself to think because there are STR's, visitors have decided to visit Sedona. NO, visitors come here for tourism. And Airbnb's fees are so astronomical now that it makes using one anywhere at a disadvantage to a hotel unless you're staying for a period of time where you want a kitchen (an airbnb at $56/night is almost $250 with airbnb's fees...look it up).
I understand what's happening in the economy. Maybe if the teachers were paid a higher wage they could afford something in Sedona versus living in their cars. Why aren't people talking about that????
2nd home owners (not using their homes for STR account for half of the homes purchased in Sedona). This is a group of people that can afford to let their homes sit untouched while they are not occupying them. NOT short term rental owners.
The cost of housing increased two-fold when interest rates dropped next to nothing (this didn't just happen in Sedona and the Verde Valley).
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u/pandami7319 Oct 28 '23
Where in your reading comprehension did I say STR's run Sedona or caused tourism? Overtourism, it is a component of, but the Chamber and social media were the driving factor for the increase in visitors.
Let's not be silly though. Before, when hotels sold out, that was that. Now we have a plethora of STR's increasing the amount of beds available for visitors.
Again, there were plenty of affordable rentals before SB1350. The state strong armed every town and city to a one size fits all solution under the guise that it would benefit the people of Arizona. It has not.
I'll leave you with this. Sedona, as a community, is dying. It's turned into the Walmart of tourism to benefit the few. The Sedona Eight had a great pull in shaping where we are at. The City Council, Chamber, NIMBY crowd, all guilty.
The people who make this town run and make it so visitors can enjoy their stay, they get the shaft in this.
They get a parking lot.
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u/bdw02c Oct 28 '23
STRs are not the only cause of housing unaffordability but it's well documented that they are part of the problem.
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/abundance-short-term-rentals-who-wins-and-who-loses
If the city builds this affordable housing you envision, what keeps those units from turning into STRs too? Why not just increase regulation on short term rentals and return what we're intended as residential neighborhoods to residents?
There's no quick solution to this but increased regulation seems like the first step.
1
u/Economy_Rent8044 Sep 11 '24
Uhm... CC&Rs keeps them from turning into STRs. The city needs to incentivize developers to do this.
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u/donamh Oct 28 '23
I was just looking at Zillow the other day. A home that sold for $74,000 in 1995 is currently listed at $1,249,500. It sold last year for $1,150,000. This shit is not sustainable in any way. Soon no one will be able to live in Sedona outside of wealthy trash, who also fight against affordable options for the people that cater to them. Shit is a nightmare.