Teaser: Yes. Yes you are.

In my previous articles discussing the topic of wait times for STR licenses in Unincorporated Summit County Neighborhood Zones (NOZ), I discussed how depending on where your property is located in Summit County NOZs, you could be waiting from 4 to 19 years for the first new license to become available. I completed this analysis based solely on sales – I didn’t account for any attrition. I also updated the spreadsheet, keeping the old numbers too, with the latest numbers of STR licenses per the Summit County website. My method was to calculate the number of sales in each NOZ in the last 12 months, then multiply that number by the percentage of units in that zone that are STRs to determine how many of the sales could be STRs. Then with that amount of sales, we can determine how long it will take the excess number of licenses to be absorbed by sales. After that excess number is absorbed, the next sale should result in a STR license for the first person on the waitlist (no waitlists have been established yet). 

Here are the current wait times using sales data from November 14, 2022 to November 13, 2023:

Lower Blue Basin (Wildernest and Silverthorne) – 4.65 years
Snake River Basin (Dillon Valley and Summit Cove) – 13.62 years
Ten Mile Basin (Frisco) – 27.5 years
Upper Blue Basin (Breckenridge Area) – 5.32 years

My last analysis using sales data from 2022 sales is as follows:

Lower Blue Basin (Wildernest and Silverthorne) – 6 years
Snake River Basin (Dillon Valley and Summit Cove) – 13.77 years
Ten Mile Basin (Frisco) – 18.13 years
Upper Blue Basin (Breckenridge Area) – 6.33 years

Obviously, the biggest difference is if you are in the Ten Mile Basin! Don’t expect to get a STR license until your unborn children are out of the house, with their own job, and 1.5 kids of their own. Or, if you are older like me, you can get a STR license when you are in the nursing home or six feet under. I mean, no STR buyers will be buying a house in Summit County unincorporated areas of Frisco which include Bills Ranch, Wiborg Sub, and Evergreen Sub by Mount Royal. 

You may or may not have heard that there is a lawsuit pending against Summit County for these restrictions. This case is currently in motion practice in Federal District Court in Denver. Case 1:23-cv-02057 Ruelle et al v. Summit County Board of County Commissioners et al. You can find copies of the complaint and subsequent motions at this link. 

While no one knows how this case is going to turn out, we do know it will take months to a year (or longer) before any decisions are made. Also, there could always be the appeals process which would extend the timeframe for court intervention. Until more information becomes available in the disposition of the case, my wait times above are a good point of reference for how long you would need to wait to get a STR license in the Summit County Unincorporated NOZs.

What are your options? 

1. Rent 30 or more days! Note that any rental that is 30 days or more does not need a STR license. There are property management companies that are focusing on longer stays. You can find them on my website under the extended stay tab under Property Managers. 
2. Use your property in a trade program such as Home Exchange. This a home trading platform where no fees are exchanged.

3. Long-term rent it. If you aren’t using your property, you can choose to rent it long-term to people who are living in Summit County full-time.