SARANAC LAKE — The latest data on short-term vacation rentals in the village of Saranac Lake shows that the number of STRs owned by people outside of Saranac Lake has been increasing over the past year and that main structure rentals have seen more rapid growth than multi-family rentals.

After a meeting between the village board and Housing Task Force last week, village Community Development Director Jamie Konkoski made the data — which comes from the latest July 2022 report — available to the Enterprise. The data was released as the village considers regulations for STRs, especially for investment properties owned by people outside the community.

On Monday, there were around 80 active STR properties in the village, according to data gathered by the village’s STR software that day. Around 80% of all STRs active that day were secondary or investment properties.

But this data is also not highly accurate, as it changes constantly, fluctuates seasonally and is prone to “glitches” or incomplete data, according to Konkoski.

All the data from these reports, compiled using Rentalscape software, also comes with the caveat that the numbers are snapshots of the state of STRs. The problem is that these numbers are highly susceptible to random changes, seasonal fluctuations and constant variations day-to-day, all of which are out of the village’s knowledge or ability to gather, Konkoski said.

She has run a full STR report twice now — once in September 2021 and another in July 2022. Any number of rentals could be offline the day she runs a report for a variety of reasons.

Konkoski said much of the data from these reports is not expected to be “100% accurate.” It’s mostly to allow her to identify trends.

The reports over the past two years have shown that a little less than half of the STRs in the village are locally owned. Village Trustee Kelly Brunette said this was higher than she thought it would be.

“That’s why having some facts is useful, so we can put some truth to our assumptions,” Brunette said at a meeting last week.

The village purchased the Rentalscape software last summer for $7,500. This initial cost included the price of setting it up. To continue using the software, the village could pay around $4,700 annually, depending on the number of STR properties.

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Who owns STRs?

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Konkoski’s July 2022 report identified 97 STRs in the village, 22 more than the previous September 2021 report showed.

Of these 97 properties, 10 were primary residences, 41 were secondary or investment properties and 46 were listed as “unknown.” That’s a massive leap in incomplete data from the 2021 report, when only two properties were listed as “unknown.” In that previous report, 16 properties were identified as primary residences and 57 were identified as secondary or investment properties.

Konkoski said it is unclear why so many properties showed up as “unknown” in the July 2022 report, or what the true nature of those properties were. She chalked the unclear data up to a “glitch” in the system when she ran a report. She said Monday she’s been “bummed” about this.

“It’s frustrating to have a glitch in the data,” she said.

The July 2022 report listed 80 homes under a section detailing where secondary and investment STR owners lived. This infers that 39 of the “unknown” properties were secondary or investment properties and 17 were primary residences, but Konkoski said that could not be stated conclusively.

A report Konkoski ran on Monday showed 82 rentals in the village — 10 primary residences, 64 secondary or investment properties and eight unknown properties.

Over half of the 80 secondary or investment STRs identified in the 2022 report — 50 of them — were owned by people with Saranac Lake addresses. Thirteen owners had New York addresses outside the village. And 17 were owned by people with addresses outside the state.

Konkoski said the biggest takeaway for her is that the number of STRs owned by people outside of Saranac Lake is the fastest-rising trend.

In the 2021 report, 43 secondary or investment properties were owned by people with Saranac Lake addresses, seven were owned by people with addresses in New York outside the village and six were owned by people with addresses outside the state. That’s a near doubling of outside the village New York owners and a near tripling of out-of-state owners.

Last month, Evolve, a vacation rental and management company, named Saranac Lake the best place in the nation to buy a lakefront investment property next year.

The majority of STR owners in the July 2022 report — 78 of them — own one rental property. Three owners identified in the latest report own two properties. No owner in that report owned more than two STR properties.

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Where are the STRs?

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Brunette portioned the village into 11 districts, and included the number of STRs inside them from the 2021 report.

The “Lake Flower” district in the southernmost tip of village had six STRs then and in the July 2022 report.

The “Lake Flower Corridor” along Lake Flower Avenue had two STRs then and six in the July 2022 report.

The “College Hill” district near North Country Community College had three STRs then and seven in the July 2022 report.

The “Helen Hill” neighborhood had 11 STRs then and 17 in the July 2022 report.

The “Downtown” district had 10 STRs then and 11 in the July 2022 report.

The “French Hill” neighborhood had four STRs then and six in the July 2022 report.

The “Upper Broadway” district had two STRs then and one in the July 2022 report.

The “Park Avenue” district had nine STRs then and 15 in the July 2022 report.

The “Lake Street” district near Dewey Mountain had five STRs then and seven in the July 2022 report.

The “Riverside Drive” district on the western edge of Lake Flower had 13 STRs then and 17 in the July 2022 report.

The “AMA” district around the Trudeau Sanatorium had two STRs then and one in the July 2022 report.

The Saranac Lake village board is considering regulating STRs in the near future and has pledged to have a draft of regulations for the public to review after the holiday season.