Short Term Rentals

Under Maine Revised Statutes (MRS) Title 36 §706-A, any information requested by the Assessor that is proprietary and confidential can be protected (under penalty of law) from being disclosed to most other parties. This means that we will keep the survey results in a locked file cabinet, and will not include them with any request for public records from the assessor's office. Sharing confidential and proprietary information without your written consent to those not authorized to view it is a Class E crime. 

However, similar information to that found in the survey may be publicly available from other sources, including estimates of the average price charged to short-term renters, and estimates of the number of days the property was available for short-term rental use. Publicly available information cannot be deemed proprietary and confidential under MRS Title 36 §706-A.

Most commercial properties require an Assessor (or an appraiser) to consider an income-based approach to valuation of the property. An income approach to valuation considers property valuation from the point of view of a real estate investor's expected return on investment. The income approach determines the value of a property today based on the present worth of the property's future income production. The basic equation to calculate the income-based value of a property is Net Annual Income divided by Capitalization Rate = Property Value. 

Most short-term rental properties are located in single family homes, or in properties with less than 4 housing units. Such properties are usually too small for an income approach to valuation to be useful in the mass appraisal process used in valuing properties for property tax purposes. However, over the years a few of Bath's short term rental properties have sold for unexpected high prices. This survey is designed to help the Assessor better understand if an income approach to valuation should be considered, and under what circumstances such an approach might be applicable.