Henrico contracts with Texas firm to monitor short-term rentals in county

Henrico County officials will use software developed by a former Utah mayor to help manage short-term home rental compliance, registration, licensing and tax remittance.

The county will use Bear Cloud Software's STR Helper to manage the process; it was created by John Spuhler, co-founder and CSO who helped develop the software while addressing similar short-term housing issues in Garden City, Utah, where he was mayor.

Anyone who rents a home in Henrico for a short period of time (notably through the online services Airbnb and HomeAway) will be required to register the property and his or her name through the system for a small fee and an annual renewal. STR Helper will provide statistical and compliance reporting as well as the ability to produce registration certificates, renewal forms and other correspondence specific to each short-term rental property.

“We are excited to work with Henrico County to help them manage short term rentals in their community," Spencer said. "Increasingly, we see urban markets using our product to help manage all aspects of short term rental compliance."

Henrico County joins Charleston, South Carolina; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New Hanover County, North Carolina; Aurora, Colorado; Sacramento, California; and Montgomery County, MD as other localities to use the software.

STR Helper works by scanning multiple national listing sites, such as HomeAway and Airbnb, as well the local sites of local short-term rental property management firms, for short-term rental listings and then automatically cross-checking STR Helper’s real-time list of properly registered and/or tax compliant properties to identify short-term rentals that are not properly registered. Many cities have seen tax revenues increase dramatically as tax compliance rates have increased from as low as 20 percent to close to 100 percent, according to company officials.

The Citizen reported in September that Henrico officials had delayed an ordinance change that would make such short-term leases legal in Henrico until they found a software program that could help them keep track of such rentals.