News Photo by Crystal Nelson Margie Haaxma, owner and broker at Banner Realty, recently talks on the phone in her office on Ripley Boulevard.

ALPENA — New Alpena County resident Lyn Loheed hopes her new community doesn’t allow too many people like her in town.

An experienced landlord who spent decades renovating old homes in Iowa, Loheed recently purchased a long-vacant Long Lake home with plans to renovate the home and use her spare bedrooms and several cabins on the property as Airbnb rental housing.

Such properties — the vacation homes, lake cottages, hunting cabins, and Airbnb properties the U.S. Census Bureau calls “part-time, seasonal, and recreational” homes — can be big business for landlords and pump major tourism dollars into a community. Governments also tax such properties at a significantly higher rate than year-round residences, helping fund local schools and infrastructure.

But too many of those properties leaves too few for sale or rent, which can make it hard to bring new residents into town, slowing economic growth, economic development experts, and real estate experts told The News. Such properties make up 84% of Northeast Michigan homes not occupied by a year-round resident, according census data, nearly double the statewide share and more than double that of the nation.

Take, for example, Oscoda, where “they have a major employer … that has 1,400 jobs, they’re trying to bring people in, but they have literally nowhere for people to stay, because there is no other housing,” said Joe Borgstrom, principal with the East Lansing-based economic development consulting firm Place and Main. “So they’ve got 40% of their housing sitting empty for six to nine months out of the year, and it’s very frustrating, because you have this pent-up demand for this type of housing stock with no ability to utilize what you actually have.”

News Photo by Julie Riddle Alpena County resident Lyn Loheed recently searches for a photo on her phone while her puppy, Valentine, looks on.

Loheed cautions communities about allowing temporary rentals without oversight. Buyers expecting income from a rotation of renters will outbid families hoping to settle in the area, she said.

“This whole area will just turn into Disneyland,” she said. “There’s such a family vibe up here, there’s such a community vibe, and some of that will be lost if they allow that.”

VACANT HOMES BRING PEOPLE NORTH

Second homes certainly benefit the area.

While tourist destinations like Mackinac Island bring people to northern Michigan for the summer, hunting camps bring people during the off-season, said Andrea Kares, former Alpena planning, development, and zoning director. Kares left her city position late last month, though she’ll continue to contract with the city for some work temporarily.

People with vacation homes return to those homes throughout the year and “purchase things from our stores that we have locally,” said Margie Haaxma, broker and owner at Banner Realty, said. “They buy the gas. They buy the food. They shop at the stores that we have that are novelty stores, which I’m really thankful for downtown.”

Plus, when people buy those second homes, they hire contractors to make repairs, which improves the look of the home in the community, said Rogers City Mayor Scott McLennan.

“They’re fixing them up, repairing them, whatever they need, and that certainly is a benefit,” he said.

He said those repairs increase home values, which, in turn, strengthens the city’s tax base. Non-homestead property owners pay a little over one-and-a-half times the tax rate homestead property owners pay, according to county records.

RENTALS TAKING HOMES OFF THE MARKET

But Northeast Michigan, like much of the nation, already battles a housing shortage — worsened by the coronavirus pandemic — caused by too high of a demand, too short a supply, and sharply rising costs both for buying and building new homes.

Over weeks of interviews with homeowners, homebuyers, real estate professionals, and economic development experts, The News heard of Alpena-area businesses struggling to recruit because potential hires can’t find a place to live. The News talked to several residents who spent weeks searching for a home and were forced to settle for something less than they wanted.

And homes tied up in non-homestead properties contribute to the problem.

McLennan, the Rogers City mayor, said seasonal homes make it much more difficult for local businesses to make it in the winter months. He said the city lacks the buying power it would have if more people lived here year-round.

McLennan said Borgstrom, of the firm Place and Main, identified Rogers City as in danger of having a housing problem.

The city is mostly built out — meaning it lacks property available for new construction — and an economic development study compiled by Borgstrom estimates about 20% of homes in the community are currently used for vacation homes.

One option Borgstrom presented to city officials: Cap the number of vacation rental homes allowed in the city.

McLennan said Rogers City officials have not had any discussions about doing so, yet, although they are working through Borgstrom’s plan.

“It’s likely that we’ll get to that to at least take a look at it, and we’ll consider that section of it at some point,” McLeannan said. “We’ve been picking off portions of that plan over the past year and a half or so since it was developed.”

News staff writer Julie Riddle contributed to this report.