Helen and Van Arnold have offered rental homes near the Texas Medical Center and MD Anderson Cancer Center for more than 20 years, and they weren’t concerned about Houston’s short-term rental ordinance and the associated fees that come with it.
Until they got a letter from the city.
The Arnolds don’t operate party houses; they provide a much-needed service for the loved ones of cancer patients and people who are recovering after a hospital stay. They also don’t operate short-term rentals, defined as dwellings that are rented for 30 days or less. The Arnolds’ properties have a 60-day minimum stay requirement.
That’s why Van Arnold was surprised when he got a letter featuring Mayor John Whitmire’s seal at the top telling him he had to pay up or be booted from the Airbnb platform where he gets most of his business.
“I’m not going to pay it,” Arnold told the Houston Press. “I’m not going to go through the city process. They want you to take classes and they’re going to start treating us like a hotel instead of a rental property.”
A strict review of the letter indicates Arnold probably won’t have to register or pay any fees.
A 2024 estimate showed that 8,548 Houston short-term rentals were advertised on various platforms. About 27 percent of those properties had received a call to Houston police between November 2023 and November 2024, according to city documents. Market data suggests there could be as many as 20,000 short-term rentals in Houston but many don’t advertise on public platforms.
Administration and Regulatory Affairs Director Tina Paez said about 2,000 registrations have been approved to date.
Late last year, residents with Houstonians Against Airbnb began airing their grievances at a series of Houston City Council meetings, telling horror stories of the short-term rental guests that have kept them up all hours of the night.
Party houses are popular in touristy parts of the city like Montrose, Midtown and The Heights, and activity ramps up during spring break and the summertime when big groups get together for pool parties. But in some areas, renters hold large gatherings year-round, residents have said, referring to some of the problem properties as brothels and whorehouses.
Short-term rental operators are now required to register with the city and pay an annual $275-per-property fee. They also have to show proof that they’ve paid their 17 percent hotel occupancy taxes and completed human trafficking awareness training. Operators can’t advertise their properties as event spaces and have to provide a 24-7 emergency contact who must respond to complaints within an hour.
Enforcement begins January 1, and the city will begin contacting platforms like Airbnb and VRBO in April to remove hosts that are noncompliant, according to a FAQ list on the city website.
The ordinance is intended to reduce noise, trash and parking violations and deter criminal activity like drug use, prostitution and trafficking.
Sébastien Long, CEO of Houston-based hospitality company Lodgeur, operates 135 furnished rental apartments and says not only does the Houston ordinance do nothing to address public safety, it also punishes good operators who have never had a complaint and go out of their way to ensure that their tenants are good neighbors.
“This was meant to be about public safety but clearly it’s about bureaucracy or some sort of power trip,” he said.
“I continue to be unimpressed by [Administration and Regulatory Affairs] work,” he added. “They’re making it unnecessarily difficult to get a permit. They’re treating us like bad actors, like we don’t have permission to rent out these properties. We couldn’t apply for a permit for three weeks because the system didn’t work.”
Long was ultimately able to file for a permit for one of his apartments two months ago and it still hasn’t been approved, he said. By comparison, he registered a property in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and had a $100 permit within 48 hours. The North Texas city also provided an inspection to ensure that safety equipment was on site, he said.
“We’re not going to waste our money if they’re going to mess us around,” he said of the Houston registration process, noting that he’ll end up paying upwards of $40,000 in fees because he has to permit each individual unit, according to the ordinance.
Language about liability and whether an owner or an operator is responsible for the property still doesn’t match up in the ordinance and the registration form, Long said.
“We’re not asking for any change in the legal text of the ordinance at this stage,” he said. “All we’re asking is that ARA’s application process mirrors the legal text of the ordinance.”
Initially, the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department required operators who rented multiple rooms of the same home to get a permit and pay a fee for each room. That’s been resolved now, but it took weeks to do so and caused one 75-year-old widower who supplements her income with room rentals to almost give up on the process, Long said.
“Between the complexity of the process and initially being told she’d have to apply for a permit for each room, she was quite distraught,” Long said. “It’s freaking people out. People who have worked in this community for 10 years without a single problem or incident are [closing their Houston rentals] because they perceive this as a massive hassle and liability.”
“The city council members keep telling us we’re the good guys and yet the ARA is treating us like criminals, basically,” he said. “We have to prove we’re not liars.”
The registration fees don’t go toward enforcement; they will be used to pay for “Host Compliance” software to the tune of $1.6 million. A third-party vendor, Granicus, is tasked with maintaining the registration database. The city’s contract with Granicus is about $350,000 per year.
Paez said she expects the ordinance will be effective in weeding out bad actors.
“The enforcement is not designed to harm ‘good’ STRs, and compliance should improve business for STRs that operate responsibly,” Paez said in an email. “They could potentially realize more business since the city’s dashboard will allow the public to see which properties are registered and in good standing.”
Short-Term Rental Enforcement
Residents have been able to submit complaint forms about problem short-term rentals through a Houston 311 webpage, and they say they hope that when enforcement begins next month they’ll get more prompt and thorough responses. Some have resorted to calling their constable’s office or reaching out directly to the landlord.
Starting January 1, a 24-hour complaint hotline will be available for public reporting. Complaints will be routed to the appropriate city departments for investigation and further monitoring and enforcement action, Paez said.
Debra Oliver, a North Montrose resident for 17 years, said her neighborhood has been overrun with multifamily and single-family short-term rentals since before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The neighborhood has deed restrictions prohibiting renting space like boarding houses or hotels, but there’s no homeowners association to enforce it, Oliver said.
“This is a shit show that’s been allowed to get way too big, and now we have an infestation,” she said. “People say, ‘Why don’t you just sell your house and move?’ I was like, who is going to buy my house when it’s next to an Airbnb? I have to disclose that. I am a very liberal and very accepting and tolerant person but this has been nothing but abuse. I lost five years of my life because of that Airbnb next door. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown.”
Oliver said while the home next door to her was operating as a short-term rental, she witnessed what she believed to be illegal drug use and prostitution but it’s difficult to prove what’s happening on someone else’s private property, and typically, by the time police respond, the activity has ceased.
“It was out of control,” she said.
The home in question currently has a long-term tenant with a multi-year lease who hasn’t caused any problems, but Oliver said she’s not resting easy because it can revert back to a short-term rental when the lease is up — and there are several other party houses in the neighborhood.
“I have two properties on either side of me that are on the market,” she said. “I basically live in the constant dread of what’s going to happen. I’m always under the veil of, when is my life going to go back to not being normal again?”
The ordinance, Oliver said, is clunky and lacks teeth. For example, it states that the city can remove all short-term rentals from booking sites for a particular owner or operator if at least three of their registrations have already been revoked in a two-year period.
The language is confusing, Oliver said, and there’s nothing to prevent the problem rental from getting back on the platform once it comes into compliance. And removal from a booking site doesn’t mean property owners can’t rent out their spaces through other means. Many use word of mouth or social media.
Violations are punishable by fines of up to $500 for each citation. Each day any violation continues will be punishable by a separate fine.
A Heights resident who asked not to be identified sobbed into the phone last week as she told the Press of scary and potentially dangerous daily occurrences in her neighborhood due to the influx of short-term renters.
“The ordinance is a little soft,” she said. “I’m curious to see what enforcement looks like. I feel like we’re still going to heavily rely on our constable. It’s every day. It’s happening today. I hope they take their license away and then, ideally, the next time I call, they’re toast.”
Many neighbors say they are uncomfortable speaking at city council meetings, photographing what they perceive to be illegal activity or getting involved at all because they don’t want to be retaliated against by tenants or property owners.
What Happens to the Good Guys?
Short-term rentals have presented challenges in cities across Texas and the United States. Some cities, including Dallas and Fort Worth, have created a zoning designation that requires rental properties to be in hotel districts. Legal challenges abound as short-term rental operators say the city can’t tell them what to do with a property they own and pay taxes on.
Houston, the largest U.S. city that does not have traditional comprehensive zoning laws, has opted to deal with the matter through fees, restrictions, and soon, enforcement.
The Texas Short Term Rental Association formed in October and created chapters in Austin, El Paso and Houston. The goal of the Houston group is to advance fair rules, promote responsible hosting, and ensure Houston remains welcoming to travelers and residents, said Lisa Sievers, a longtime Airbnb operator in Dallas and secretary of the association.
A 2023 study by Tourism Economics found that Texas short-term rentals generated $14.3 billion in business sales, supported more than 83,000 jobs, and contributed $1.2 billion in state and local tax revenue across the state.
Long, who serves as president of the Texas Short-Term Rental Alliance, says even though he’s followed all the rules and advocated for a sensible ordinance that doesn’t punish the good guys, there are still challenges ahead. He’s hosted a few gatherings recently to ensure that other operators know how they can stay in compliance and hold the city accountable.
The Texas Short-Term Rental Alliance encourages fair and consistent regulation and encourages lawful compliance from its members. Long said he also shares his “jungle wisdom,” or best practices, with hosts, guests and neighbors.
Long pushed for trafficking awareness training to be required for operators, and that’s included in the ordinance. Other measures he suggested, such as noise monitoring devices and air quality sensors that will alert a property owner if the air conditioner is broken or a guest is smoking a cigarette or a marijuana joint on site, were not included, he said.
The noise monitoring devices cost about $100 and notify the property owner and the guest when decibel levels reach a certain threshold, which is lower during the overnight hours. Usually when Long gets a notification of a noise trigger, it’s “an older person who has maybe fallen asleep in front of the TV,” he said.
“The No. 1 value for us has been peace of mind because we know that our guests are quiet and we have the data to prove it,” he said.
Long also asked for HPD to remove tenants for trespassing if they’re on property past the date of their stay. It’s something that is done at hotels, he said, but it’s not included in the short-term rental ordinance.
“They think this is a civil matter, which is incorrect,” he said. “This is not about public safety whatsoever. It’s just not.”
In a previous interview with the Press in August, Administration and Regulatory Affairs Chief of Staff Billy Rudolph acknowledged that a registration database won’t stop people from having parties, but it will provide Code Enforcement and Houston police officers emergency contact information and create accountability for the owners and operators who don’t want to pay fines or get shut down.
“I think we’re going to see enforcement be more effective,” Rudolph said. “I don’t think it’s an across-the-board solution. We’re probably still going to run into issues that we can’t anticipate right now, and I think revisiting the ordinance to address any issues that come up is a possibility.”
Jason Ginsburg, a real estate attorney and founder of Houstonians Against Airbnb, said he and his neighbors intend to stay vigilant.
“If there is a nuisance Airbnb on our block or if there are several, it’s not just going to be one report to 311,” he said. “It’s not just going to be one call to HPD. It’s going to be a dozen calls and a dozen reports every single time there’s a disturbance until the message gets through that we’re not going to tolerate parties in that kind of atmosphere when our children are trying to sleep and we’re just trying to live our lives.”
Oliver said the city should not bother chasing fees and licenses from operators who live on site and rent out a single room in their homes.
“Corporations that own multiple properties are not the same as mom and pop renting a room out in their house to make ends meet,” she said. “I think we should take care of the little person and slam dunk the corporations that are raping neighborhoods. I feel very strongly about that.”
Neighbors who live near party houses are quick to point out that Airbnb has a ton of money, a multibillion-dollar industry and a seat at the table during negotiations with the city council, but Long says it’s a false narrative to pit “angry neighbors” against all short-term rental operators.
“We’re not opposed to regulations or getting rid of party houses,” he said. “We want the right to be able to have short-term rentals and to run them without interference from politicians or neighbors, assuming that we do things in a manner that doesn’t disturb other people.”
Long and members of the Houston Short-Term Rental Association also intend to stay vigilant.
“This is not something we’re going to back down on,” Long said. “We’re not going to be bullied on this. This is our livelihood for our families. It’s not a hobby. Our families depend on it and our employees depend on it. This is not something to be taken lightly.”
And although Van Arnold may have had a somewhat flippant response to the letter he got in the mail strongly suggesting that he register his rental properties, he takes it seriously too.
Arnold’s grandfather built a private school in the Willow Meadows/Willowbend neighborhood in southwest Houston in 1954. Arnold and his wife now own a whole block and live there among the rental properties.
“There’s an RV park across Main Street from me and they’re all medical patients with RVs,” he said. “I decided to rent homes to medical patients. It went gangbusters for years, but it’s been kind of slow in the last few years, probably because a lot of people are doing it these days.”
It’s a full-time job for Arnold, who maintains the homes, and his wife, who keeps them clean. They say they don’t like the hassle of short-term rentals so they require at least 60-day stays, and always have. They only accept medical patients and they’ve never had a problem with people having parties.
“A lot of my homes are gated and they’re very secure,” he said. “They have a yard, so they bring their pets. They’re so comfortable when they get here, as comfortable as they can be under the circumstances.”
He said he’s concerned that Airbnb will pull his listing if he doesn’t pay the fees, and he already just paid $92,000 in property taxes for all his rental homes.
“It’s not huge money I’m making,” he said. “I charge $3,550 a month, which is what I was charging 10 years ago.”
The letter Arnold received states: “Pursuant to Ordinance No. 2025-322, a Short-Term Rental is defined as ‘a dwelling unit or any portion of a dwelling unit that is rented out for a period of less than 30 consecutive days.’ On January 1, 2026, each property operating as an STR must have a valid City of Houston Certificate of Registration to continue operating as a Short-Term Rental or the owner/operator will be in violation of the city’s STR ordinance.”
A number is listed at the bottom of the letter for recipients to call if they believe the message was received in error. Arnold said he hadn’t called it.
Rudolph told the Press that Arnold won’t have to register or pay the fee as long as he’s not operating a short-term rental, as defined in the ordinance adopted by the city council in April.
While it doesn’t seem likely, based on what the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department told the Press, that the Arnolds will be required to register or pay fees, the situation does shine a spotlight on potential inefficiencies for an ordinance that hasn’t even been enforced yet.
“They’re going to have to catch me renting for less than 30 days and I don’t do that,” Arnold said.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.