Short-Term Vacation Rental Law in New York

[Amy Zemser]

Greetings, fellow pocketers: 

I have been managing my own short-term vacation rentals and long-term rentals for years and years. Do I need a real estate license in the state of New York to manage short-term rentals for OTHER homeowners? I have been looking into this for a few days now and the best I can come up with is that the law is GRAY. I spoke to one real estate licensing school director who said yes, you absolutely need a real estate broker license to own a property management business in New York. Then I called another online school and the director there said, absolutely NOT. She spoke quite definitively. You do NOT need a broker's license in order to run a vacational rental property management business, she said. Or any kind of property management business. She was vehement. 

I consulted with a lawyer in the field in Albany, New York, and I am waiting to hear back from him. He said he was almost positive that you DO need a real estate/broker's license to run a property management company of any type, but he was going to consult the books one more time so that he could charge me a billion dollars per hour to find out something really basic. I said why charge me a billion when you could charge me a zillion. 

I digress. 

If I must, I will affiliate with a brokerage, but it irritates me that I will have to spend time and money on this. I have experience in the field. Furthermore, acquiring a Broker's license would require extensive years buying/selling real estate, which has nothing to do with property management. Would I really have to spend time as a licensed real estate agent in a brokerage, putting in unrelated time as an agent, just so I can legally run my own property management company and perform trust accounting duties (essentially, managing other people's money)? 

Does anyone have any direct knowledge about New York law in the area of vacation rental management while I wait to hear back from the attorney? I'm speaking specifically about short-term vacation rental management. Possibly some long-term rentals (they do come up from time to time, and I'd hate to limit myself) but mostly I specialize in short-term rentals. 

Thank you my brilliant gurus!