MINERAL COUNTY — Mineral County Commissioners are continuing to research ways to track short-term rentals in the county.

Dustin Reilich, Vice President of Sales and Government Relations for Rental Scape, gave a brief presentation on software that can track short-term rentals.

Reilich gave a tutorial on how the software works and what the company does to help track short-term rentals.

“We are a San Diego-based company, but we work throughout the entire United States identifying and monitoring short-term vacation rental properties. Our entire background and our team is in a data science and data engineering team. With that type of technology, we look for providing fairness and equity in the marketplace to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share in taxes and things of that nature,” explained Reilich.

Reilich explained that the company uses a type of software that data mines daily use and bookings of vacation rentals in areas throughout the US including several in small rural communities in Colorado. The data that is collected ensures that properties that are advertising through online companies such as Air BNB or VRBO are paying their taxes as well as applying for and receiving proper permits through state or local governments to operate short-term vacation rentals. 

Reilich had a database of vacation rentals in the Mineral County area and showed the commissioners how the software works.

“We work with Adam’s County, Ouray County and what we do is we go in and look at the local marketplace as a whole," Reilich said. "We can look at short-term rentals which is 30 days or less and over the last year. We have many different factors that we can use like using properties that have been recently identified or ones that are advertising but have not been identified yet.”

According to Reilich, Mineral County has about 100 short-term vacation rentals that advertise through mainstream companies like VRBO and would be tracked through Rental Scape should the county decide to hire the data collection company. 

Previous to the presentation, Kathleen Murphy, director of the Creede and Mineral County Chamber of Commerce, spoke with commissioners about a similar company called Key Data. Murphy has been working to try and get the data collection off the ground for going on two years and asked commissioners to join her in her effort to track the short-term rentals in the area. Murphy said that she was applying for a grant that may help with costs associated with hiring Key Data for the purpose of data collection within the county.

Commissioners opted to continue their research into the collection of short-term rental data.