The 95% Solution: How Smart Technology is Revolutionizing STR Compliance
By Nick del Pego
CEO, Deckard Technologies
Every day, government employees across America scan spreadsheets and cross-reference tax records to manage short-term rentals (STRs). They are doing important work with outdated tools, and the true cost is significant. After working with over 400 jurisdictions, I’ve learned that the barriers to compliance are simple: hosts either don’t know the rules, or the rules are too hard to follow.
Most jurisdictions approach STR compliance as an enforcement problem. I see it as an education challenge. When you make compliance easy and clear, most people choose to do the right thing. However, manual processes make everything harder.
The Revenue Gap You Can’t See
Most jurisdictions underestimate their STR footprint. While staff manually monitor Airbnb and Vrbo, our data shows they miss up to 35% of active listings scattered across thousands of other platforms, from Booking.com to social media marketplaces.
The STR landscape has expanded far beyond what manual monitoring can track. Airbnb alone grew from 6 million listings in 2019 to over 7.7 million by 2024. This “invisible inventory” represents millions in uncollected tax revenue. When jurisdictions switch to comprehensive monitoring, they consistently discover hundreds of properties they didn’t know existed.
The Compliance Reality Check
On average, compliance rates for jurisdictions managing STRs manually sit below 60%—I believe the true average is closer to 48%. In contrast, technology-driven approaches see compliance rates average 93%. Currently, about 96% of the market isn’t using modern technology, and over 60% of the market operates with minimal effective rules.
The Churn Challenge Nobody Talks About
Here’s something most people don’t understand about STR compliance: it’s a churn market. If you run compliance and don’t pay attention for a month, you’re looking at 25% churn. A place like La Quinta sees 200–300 properties disappear off the market in a given year, and 200 new ones show up.
This is a constant process, like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. They start at one end, go to the other, and by the time they finish, they have to start over. You never finish. Manual processes simply can’t keep up with this constant change. By the time your spreadsheet is updated, it’s already out of date.
The 75% Time Trap
I recently spoke with an administrator in Florida who calculated a 75% reduction in research time after implementing automation. Manual processes create cascading inefficiencies: separate spreadsheets with conflicting data, reactive work, and slow response times. Automation allows for proactive management rather than constant catch-up.
The Professional Host Challenge
Manual monitoring often misses the behavioral difference between individual and professional hosts. Studies show that in major cities, less than 11% of hosts control over 40% of all listings. Professional hosts treat compliance as a business calculation. Without advanced tools, you end up burdening compliant individual hosts while professional operators continue operating under the radar.
The Tax Revenue Paradox
A National Bureau of Economic Research study of Chicago confirmed a difficult truth: despite adding a 4% STR-specific tax surcharge, overall STR tax revenues declined by 9.5%. Why? Because without comprehensive monitoring and easy compliance pathways, the market goes underground. Operators simply move to platforms you aren’t monitoring.
The Clear Path Forward
The choice is not between strict enforcement and a wild market. It is between making compliance difficult with manual processes or easy with technology.
We are seeing average compliance rates of 95.3% in jurisdictions using comprehensive monitoring. This isn’t because of harsh enforcement, but because we find people, educate them, and make compliance easy. The technology exists today to transform STR compliance, typically paying for itself within months through increased tax collection.
If you could increase compliance from 48% to 93%, increase tax collection by 40%, and reduce staff workload by 75%, what would that mean for your community? The hidden costs of manual compliance are clear. The solution is to find people, educate them, and make doing the right thing easy.
