Michigan towns consider new bans, rules on Airbnbs, other short-term rentals

Short-term rentals are an easy way for travelers to use a home away from home and for the owners to make money.

But some neighbors say they sometimes get more they bargained for – issues with noise, parking, trash and disruptive parties, as well as strains on water, septic and public safety.

In April, there were shootings at parties at short-term rentals in Harper Woods, where a 19-year-old Detroit man was killed, and in Birmingham in Oakland County, where property was damaged.

Conversations about moratoriums, regulations or zoning changes for short-term rentals have or are being held in communities across Michigan from metro Detroit to Laketown Township on the shores of Lake Michigan to Alpena, which overlooks Lake Huron's Thunder Bay in northern lower Michigan to Ishpeming in the Upper Peninsula.

Possible crackdowns include restricting short-term rentals to certain zoning districts, adding caps on the numbers that can be licensed in a community and having different rules for short-term rentals that are owner-occupied and for those that are not.

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Dearborn Heights posted on its Facebook page in mid-May that it is cracking down on short-term rentals, which it prohibits, with more than 600 such properties identified as being out of compliance with city regulations.

"I think each community needs to address (short-term rentals) based on the situation in their community," said David Winn, 63, who lives across from the short-term rental where the Birmingham shooting happened and whose company car, a Buick Enclave, was hit with eight bullets. "I'm hoping communities look at what's happening in other communities and not wait for a shooting and really discuss how they want to deal with them in their communities before there's a big problem."

The General Motors engineer said of what unfolded in his neighborhood: "We all got lucky."

Airbnb said it removed the booking guest, host and listing for the Birmingham property for violating its policies, adding in a statement: "There is no place for gun violence on Airbnb." Rayved Abro, of Sterling Heights, who is listed as the owner of the Birmingham house in online property records, declined comment Tuesday, May 26.

Some local rules have ended up in court. A Wyoming limited liability company that owns a short-term rental called "Grandma's Family Fun House" with a heated indoor pool in Sterling Heights sued the city after it was issued a notice of violation for "unpermitted use" and is asking a Macomb County judge to rule that the use of the property as a short-term rental is permissible under the city's ordinances.

And Dearborn is being sued in federal court in Detroit by short-term rental owners over an ordinance approved last year that they say bans short-term rentals unless the property is in the area zoned as the downtown business district. Their properties are not in the designated district.

The state does not specifically regulate short-terms rentals, except for levying a 6% use tax. Michigan's 1,773 municipalities can regulate short-term rentals, though some may not do so, said Jennifer Rigterink, assistant director of state and federal affairs for the Michigan Municipal League.

That could change. On May 21, Michigan state Rep. Joey Andrews, D-St. Joseph, said that he and state Rep. Matthew Bierlein, R-Vasser, put forward a bipartisan plan regarding short-term rentals. One of the bills would establish a Short-Term Rental Act that includes provisions for the creation of a registry, database and 6% excise tax to be evenly split between the municipality the short-term rental is situated in and Pure Michigan, the state's advertising campaign.

The other would allow local governments to enact and enforce regulations on short-term rentals – as long as the measures don't have the effect of a total ban or prohibition.

Andrews said that it's not clear whether it's constitutional under the Zoning Enabling Act to ban a property use like short-term rentals. Also, he said, tourism is a large part of the state's economy and while such rentals shouldn't be banned, "we recognized that it does need to be controlled."

"Let the locals regulate like they do any other industry," said Andrews, who said he introduced similar bills two years ago but they weren't able to get across the finish line.

Responding to local conversations about regulating short-term rentals, Ivan Valladares, communications manager, U.S. policy, for Airbnb, provided a statement: "Airbnb has been part of Michigan communities for decades, supporting hosts and their communities, and creating economic opportunity in every part of the state. We work hard to promote responsible tourism on our platform — including by educating our community about our global disruptive party ban and investing in anti-party technology – while continuing to champion residents' ability to earn supplemental income."

Industry says use small anvil, not sledgehammer for short-term rental rules

Kate Stoermer, president and co-founder of the Michigan Short-Term Rental Association, said there are about 35,000 short-term rentals listings for Michigan that are active some part of the year. The market expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic and when interest rates were low. She said most short-term rentals are not full-time, but used for vacations and the owner's personal use.

"The majority of communities are or have in the last two to three years asked themselves what role should short-term rentals play in our community ... and what is our vision for the future regarding that and that the answer to that question is going to vary widely," she said.

Stoermer said bad things occasionally happen in short-term and long-term housing, with attention more on short-term rentals, a market that is still reasonably newer and maturing.

She said the association is seeing tighter regulations and, in some places, bans or interpretations that people can't short-term rent in residential zoning, which "takes a lot of property owners rights away." The association sees ordinances that it doesn't think are legal, she said, but short-term rental owners may not spend the money to challenge them in court.

She said the group would like to see local control with some guardrails, such as a standard definition of short-term rental, and clarity on the question about commercial activity being allowed in residential zoning, as short-term rentals often are called out for not being in alignment with residential zoning yet other activities, such as daycares for children or dogs, are allowed.

Stoermer said the association is willing to help communities decide whether they need to regulate short-term rentals or simply need nuisance ordinances to solve problems.

"You don't need a sledgehammer if a small anvil will do," she said.

Traverse City Realtor Taylor Brown compiled a guide to northern Michigan short-term rentals, starting points on what municipalities in five counties allow and don't allow for those looking for some initial guidance on the rules in one of the state's biggest tourist areas.

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Short-term rental market a billion dollar industry

Michigan State University Extension's Center for Local Government Finance and Policy issued a report in 2025 on implications, policy options and potential solutions related to the state's short-term rental economy. It found that such rentals contribute to local tourism and bring income to owners, but have exacerbated housing shortages, increased rents and raised affordability concerns, especially in supply-constrained markets.

A summary said the short-term rental market in the country was valued at just over $100 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach nearly $229 billion by 2030. In Michigan, it said, there was strong expansion in rural and waterfront communities, such as Traverse City and Frankfort.

AirDNA, which compiles data from vacation rentals and markets worldwide, said the short-term rental market in the United States in 2023 had more than 2.4 million available vacation rental listings; more than 785,000 individual hosts, and individual listings, on average, earned more than $26,000 in annual vacation revenue.

Jessica Sheedy Black, co-founder of the Texas Neighborhood Coalition, a grassroots group that says it provides guidance about short-term rental restrictions and protections for residential neighborhoods in Texas, posted on her X account May 26 that gunshots at a Dallas short-term rental over the weekend was the 617th news report nationally that she found of a shooting at a short-term rental since May 2019.

After the shooting in Birmingham, where residents have been voicing concerns about short-term rentals at government meetings, Airbnb said: "The safety of our community and local neighborhoods is a priority and we invest extensively in these efforts, from banning disruptive parties to running criminal backgrounds on hosts and guests booking in Michigan, unlike other accommodation sites."

Airbnb said in a release it was activating anti-party technology for bookings over the Memorial Day weekend across the United States. This was first used for the Memorial Day holiday in 2022 and is part of the platform's ongoing effort to try to reduce the possibility of disruptive and unauthorized parties, the company said.

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An assessment is based on information from the guest, host and third parties, it said, and may include elements relating to the timing of the reservation, prior reservations, the guest's history on the platform and listing characteristics, such as private room versus an entire home. Guests could be rejected and redirected to an alternative listing or accommodation, such as a private room or hotel. Hosts or other agents could review the reservation to determine whether it will proceed.

Nearly 11,000 people across the United States were blocked or redirected from booking an entire home listing over Memorial Day weekend in 2025, including about 25 people in Detroit, according to Airbnb, which said disruptive parties are rare. The platform said it has seen a decline in the rate of party reports in Michigan since introducing a global party ban policy in 2020.

Birmingham's beef

That didn't stop a party across from Winn's Birmingham home, where he said he was awakened in the early morning hours of April 11 to the sound of automatic gunfire. Everyone scattered from the home across the street at the short-term rental, where he said there had been parties on the weekends for the last six to seven months. He called 911, he said, and made sure his wife was on the floor.

No one was hurt. Prosecutors said four houses and two vehicles were hit. Winn said the Enclave he drove for work was totaled after bullets hit the front windshield, driver's seat, roof and side. Three 18-year-old men, one from Southfield and two from Detroit, are charged in connection with the incident.

"The neighborhood was naturally shocked," said Winn, who owns a long-term rental next to his home, where he has had the same couple as tenants for four years. "In the end, these short-term rentals, to me, are like hotels. It's a commercial business, OK, and we're in a residential area."

The City Commission enacted a a six-month moratorium on new rental licenses for periods of 30 days or less and directed the planning board to look at long-term ways to zone and regulate rentals, such as requiring that rentals would have to be for a minimum of 30 days. Changes would not start until next year as current yearly rental licenses don't expire until April 15.

Rental properties will be identified in police reports for administrative tracking and enforcement coordination and 21 tickets for unregistered rentals, including short-term ones, already have been issued.

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Harper Woods City Manager John Szymanski said a fatal shooting in that city April 25 was at a Vrbo (Vacation Rentals by Owner) listing, whose owner lives in Las Vegas. The property was rented out to the party that came and a room also was rented to another person. He said neither the partygoers nor the person living in the home under the rented room agreement knew about each other.

"They circumvented the entire process," Szymanski said, adding "this one flew right under the radar."

He said the location did not have a business license and did not respond to the city's request for a business license before the shooting occurred after the city looked through Vrbo listings for Harper Woods, which it periodically does. He said the city didn't know the property was occupied until the shooting.

Had it been licensed as a short-term rental, he said, the city would have performed inspections and the property would have had to conform to city ordinances. He said there are fewer than 10 short-term rentals registered in the city, which he said has had an ordinance about short-term rentals for a couple of years.

Green, orange and yellow notices from the city were taped to the front door of the house in May, one listing it was unsafe for occupancy, another indicating it was in violation of city ordinances.

Messages were left for the person listed as the property owner on online real estate records.

Kaye Latham, who has lived down the street for about 12 years, said she didn't know the property was a short-term rental until the shooting. She said "it's enough to make me move" if there's another shooting in what she described as a relatively quiet neighborhood.

Sterling Heights slapped with lawsuit

Disputes between municipalities and short-term rental property owners sometimes get dragged into court.

5002 Rockdale LLC, the owner of a short-term rental called Grandma's Family Fun House on Airbnb, is suing Sterling Heights, saying the city's ordinances are silent as to long-term and short-term rentals.

"The City cannot comment on this specific case due to pending litigation," it said in a statement May 8. "However, in general terms the City of Sterling Heights Zoning Ordinance only allows land uses that are specifically permitted within a zoning district. If a use is not listed as permitted, it is not allowed. Operating a property as a short-term rental is a commercial use that is not permissible in residentially zoned properties in Sterling Heights."

An early disposition settlement conference is set for July 21. The two-story house is at the end of a small cul-de-sac in a residential neighborhood.

The property was included in a January strategic planning presentation to City Council about short-term rentals that included possible regulation and enforcement. In the presentation, the city identified short-term rentals as residential homes used "for the commercial purpose of renting for less than 30 [d]ays" and said it currently does not allow short-term rentals.

The number of short-term rentals in the city is unknown, with sites such as Airbnb and Vrbo showing upwards of 70 and Zillow listing 97, though that included apartments and more long-term rental options, according to the presentation. Rentals ranged from apartments to single rooms to full homes.

In the presentation, the city said Grandma's Family Fun House had a half-dozen reported incidents, including landlord disputes and parking complaints, and the planning office sent a cease and desist order.

A notice of violation of zoning order, cease and desist, dated in July 2025 from the city planner was included in the lawsuit. It said there had been numerous reports of disturbances resulting in multiple police responses, including large parties of more than 40 guests and a near fatal drowning of someone attending a party.

In March, the lawsuit said, the city issued the owner a notice of violation for unpermitted use on the property and affixed a notice to the front door indicating the building could not be occupied until a certificate of occupancy was issued.

Days later, it said, the company was assured the property had a certificate of occupancy and that a new certificate would only be required if the property sustained substantial fire damage or underwent new construction.

In its lawsuit, the company said it doesn't believe it is in violation of the ordinance since the property is used as a permissible, one-family detached dwelling. It said it has used the property as an Airbnb since 2025 without any prior citation for a violation of this particular ordinance. Messages were left for the company's attorney, who could not be immediately reached for comment May 27.

The city's position, according to the complaint, is that since short-term rentals are not expressly permitted in the specific ordinance, they are prohibited. The company argues short-term rental operations "are not expressly prohibited by the Ordinances and therefore constitute a lawful use of Plaintiff's Subject Property."

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.

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