Short term rental Destin Fl

[Skye Penland]

Hey Guys,

We closed on a quadplex in Destin Fl today, super excited. It is in CBN area and about a block from the beach. We used my Va loan at a purchase price of 1,000,000 at an interest rate of 2.3. This deal has been really crazy through the whole process. We have been offered 1,400,000 to sell and they are considering offering more. This property has amazing potential. Here is a look at a sliver of what we had to deal with to get here:

1. A jumbo Va Loan with no funding fee due to me being a 70% disabled veteran.

2. A lot of back and forth with the appraiser and hiring a Realestate attorney to gently force her hand...... TONS more of this but it would take a whole post to convey the info.

3. We put the offer in January 14th and had to extend 2-3 times with an irritated seller because of our legal fight with the appraiser.

4. AFTER the appraiser changed her verbiage on a few key points in her report the deal almost fell through again after the Lender tried to change the terms of our approval, luckily our loan POC was on top of things and fought hard to reverse their decision.

4. It is a grandfathered use multi-family property in a primarily dominant single family STR zone.

5. It is in a small pocket of flood zone X where every other home is VE or worse. We got lucky...

It has been crazy.

The property will be our primary residence, we will live in the 3/2.5 and are hoping to STR the other three units as the leases expire (2/1, 1/1, 1/1). We have three other STR properties across the country so we are not new to AIRBNB etc.

I am hoping to get some info and guidance on the process for Florida and Destin In getting the property set up as an STR. When we first started talking to the city PRIOR to the appraisal they said all we had to do was file a change of use form. To change the use from long term multifamily to Short term multifamily.... Now after closing today when we called they said this:

“Multifamily (both short term and long term) is a conditional use in the Crystal Beach Neighborhood zoning district, and therefore allowed (not a grandfathered/nonconforming use). However, as short-term multifamily is a conditional use in that district, you would be required to apply for a Conditional Use Approval in addition to the Change of Use. This application requires two public hearings from the Local Planning Agency and City Council, and can take a minimum of 60 days.”

Does anyone have experience with this? We understand the “state” requirements for licensing and taxes... but dealing with Destin has been hard.

Any insight? I mean could they just tell us “no” what are our options if they deny us?

Thanks!