On August 1, a new pilot program launched in North Tahoe that pays landlords up to $24,000 to rent long-term to locals.
The goal is to “unblock” homes that remain vacant in Lake Tahoe and alleviate some of the growing pressure on local workers who need housing they can afford with their wages.
“We continue to be in desperate need of more workforce housing in North Lake Tahoe, and yet many homes here sit vacant for much, if not most of the year,” said said Placer County Supervisor Cindy Gustafson, who represents North Lake Tahoe. , in a report. “It’s clear that in other hill station communities, incentives like this have been key to unlocking more homes for local workers and we look forward to seeing that happen here too.”
The Lake Tahoe area has not built enough homes for local workers, and local wages have not kept up with aggressive housing price increases. As a result, Tahoe is losing its workforce, which hurts businesses and the economy. A recent survey conducted by the Tahoe Prosperity Center found that 73% of respondents agree that “the lack of stable housing options for workers is the most significant threat to quality of life in the Tahoe area.”
Some are looking to the area’s vast inventory of second homes as a way to solve the housing crisis. In North Lake Tahoe, 65% of single-family homes are second homes and short-term rentals, according to a 2021 study by the Mountain Housing Council. Many of these houses remain empty for the vast majority of the year. Meanwhile, at any one time, about 200 to 300 working households in the Tahoe area are looking for housing, according to a database maintained by Landing premisesa Truckee-based company that has evolved into a matchmaking service between homeowners and local workers.
The “Lease to Locals” program approved by the Placer County Board of Supervisors in July is an interim solution that places local workers in vacant Tahoe homes. It is inspired by similar programs that have seen success in Truckee and South Lake Tahoe, operated by Landing Locals. The financial incentive is the key to its success.
“We try to get people to change their behavior, and it might be that their house is empty or it’s renting out short-term or they’re renting it to a friend or a ski lease. So it’s a big change for them to go long-term,” said Colin Frolich, co-founder and CEO of Landing Locals. “Money motivates people.”
In North Lake Tahoe, Placer County will pay homeowners up to $24,000. Subsidies are based on the number of locally employed tenants and the length of the lease. Landlords earn $2,500 per tenant for a lease of at least five months and $6,000 per tenant for long-term leases of 12 months or more. The highest grants of $24,000 are reserved for landlords who house four employees with a 12-month lease.
In exchange, the program caps the amount of rent a landlord can charge at $3,500 — hitting back at similar homes listed on Zillow or rents ranging from $4,500 to more than $7,000 per month.
The Placer County Board of Supervisors approved a budget of $500,000 for the pilot program, including $95,000 contracted with the Truckee-based nonprofit Landing Locals to administer and market the program. If funding is available and the pilot program is successful, the Placer County Board of Supervisors may extend the program beyond its first year.
North Lake Tahoe’s subsidies are higher than subsidies offered in other parts of the Tahoe area to reflect the higher cost of housing on that side of the lake, Frolich said.
“These are the big houses in Carnelian Bay, Tahoe Vista and Kings Beach — a lot of them aren’t amazing, nice houses,” Frolich said. “They’re just big and they’re worth a lot of money.”
These same homes are ideal for families with teachers, grocery clerks, hospital workers, and government officials. Qualified renters must work a minimum of 20 hours per week at a business within the boundaries of the Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District. Proof of local employment is required.
Dave Benge is a Truckee landlord who turned to Landing Locals for help finding local tenants. He rents his three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with a two-car garage to a family whose father works at the Truckee Donner Public Utility District. He received a $7,500 grant, which he says helped pay for renovations to update the house before tenants moved in. It charges $2,800 per month, below the rental cap required by Lease to Locals.
Benge’s story is a familiar one in Lake Tahoe – he came for a winter in 1985 and stayed there his whole life after buying a house in desirable Sierra Meadows, close to downtown, the river and of a ski resort. More than 35 years later, he still lives in Sierra Meadows and recently retired from a career at Northstar California Resort. But Benge’s story, once a common tale among local residents, has become out of reach for people who work here and want to stay in Tahoe full-time.
Benge recalls job fairs at Northstar at the height of his career that drew hundreds of people. “There would be 200 people knocking on your door to come to work,” he said. “It has gone down over the years.” He is now retired, but says job fairs are much quieter, not because people don’t want to live and work in a ski resort, but because it has become so much harder to make the budget work.
Truckee’s declining workforce and housing crisis is one of the reasons Benge decided to rent a second home he owns in Sierra Meadows to locals. He says he could have made more money renting to vacationing tourists with Airbnb, but he’s seen the changes in his community brought on by the housing crisis.
“I just thought it was the right thing to do,” Benge said.
In Lake Tahoe, the median home price was $950,000 in 2021, according to Chase International. Match that number with the average median income in the Tahoe Basin: $53,156 in 2020, according to the Tahoe Prosperity Center. Math doesn’t add up. A household would need to earn “between $317,000 and $380,000 in gross income per year to afford the median home price in the area,” says a recent report from the Tahoe Prosperity Center, using a traditional calculation that predicts that housing is about a third of the monthly price. costs.
“We just want to give people a chance,” Frolich said.
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