Savannah vacation rental properties

[Jon Fox]

We moved to the Savannah area (from Wilmington, NC) and wanted to buy a house/condo downtown to rent out and be able to use occasionally .  I recently found that the property has to have the Short Term rental Certificate or you can not rent it out for less than 6 months.  A real Estate agent told me they cap each section of Savannah at 20% of the homes and there is no availability at least in the historic district.  I was wondering if anyone has experience with this.   It obviously has some value to it, but is it even worth getting on a waiting list?    If anyone has properties they are want to sell with the certificate in place, please let me know.   Thanks.  

[David Sussman]

@Jon Fox I was just there this past weekend and spoke with an agent about this very issue.  I was told that when the city decided to pass this ordinance, everyone applied for the STVR and all of them were issued.  A lot of those people don't even use them, but just thought it would be smart for "some day" (which was correct).  Those certificates are attached to the property, not the owner, so they convey with the property, which makes theme more valuable, and hard to find.  For everyone else, there is a waiting list to get a STVR certificate.  The agent told me yesterday that when she asked the city how long the wait is, they couldn't give an answer, because they said they have issued zero (0) new certificates.  Apparently those certificates will not be grandfathered with the property, so basically if they ever do issue a certificate, it will still be attached to the property, but it will NOT convey upon sale.  Bottom line is, the agent made it seem like you will be on a waiting list forever, and the only practical way to get a STVR certificate in Savannah is to buy a property that has one of the grandfathered certificates attached to it.