Our Price Setting and Listing Policies

We describe here our pricing policy for “Alta Vista” and “Casa Pacis,” and explain why we are now predominantly taking bookings only via our own website, “ACViews.com.” See also HERE for more details.

Taxes and 3rd Party Commissions and Fees

The high fees charged by vacation rental brokers, such as Airbnb and VRBO, to our renting guests — as well as to ourselves as hosts — have become a thorn in our traditional vacation renting concept which is guided by reasonableness and affordability. Seeing third-party brokers charge our valued renting guests horrendous fees and commissions, compared to our own fair pricing is, in our view, unconscionable.

About 20% commissions and fees are charged by Airbnb and VRBO.
About 15% TOT taxes and HOA fees are imposed by localities.
Thus, our guests end up paying upwards of 35% in taxes and broker charges.

In addition, we as owners are being charged credit card fees.

Of course, taxes have to be paid. But in a world-wide economic paradigm that must shift to a sustained-level economy, the micro-market of renting vacation properties should function without an intermediary that takes as much as one-third of the revenue for objectively doing very little in return.

Additionally, third-party brokers (in particular VRBO and Airbnb) essentially operate as if they are the owners of the properties that we list on their platforms. Instead, we, as owners, have to deal with all rental arrangements and perform all efforts for housekeeping and scheduling, hot tub service, property maintenance, repairs, and alike, and pay for everything, such as property taxes, HOA fees, ever rising insurance premiums, water, electricity, refuse pick-up, Internet service, TV service, hot tub maintenance, quarterly tax returns for the rental activity, handyman bills when something goes wrong during a rental, and on and on.

Third-party brokers claim that they do “something good” in return for the commissions they charge. But we, the owners are the ones who communicate with our guests, and who accommodate their special needs and wishes. We are the ones who have to guarantee correct financial accounting, often hiring professionals to correct errors or inaccuracies committed by the 3rd-party companies. Instead, since it is in our best interest to keep our good clientele happy, we are the ones who will offer better assurances to our guests. We are small enough to thoroughly deal with a special situation. We are at the other end of a phone when our guests have a question, not some AI voice or “Help Center” or a phone tree that never ends up with a human being or, if it does, only with a person who has no authority. We are the ones who can accommodate cancellations or date changes or special wishes of our guests, much better than VRBO or Airbnb ever will.

Therefore, to curtail these avoidable expenses, we have implemented:

(1) Lowest Cost BOOKINGS VIA OUR OWN ACVIEWS website
(2) Additionally, we give 3% DISCOUNT for payment via ZELLE, WISE, or personal check.

We thus assure that our valued renting guests will not be charged such senseless fees and commissions.
We lean on our valued renting guests to book their next vacations in Sea Ranch and Tahoe-Donner on the acviews platform (you can go directly to https://www.acviews.com/booking-form) and thus pay the lowest reasonable, affordable net rates.

What about flexibility?

Changes of bookings can become a nightmare when you booked via VRBO or even Airbnb. You deal with on-line programming. and getting live help is almost impossible. When you booked with us, you give us a call, and we deal with it promptly and to your immediate satisfaction.

When you need to change your plans, it’s easy when you booked with us

Regulatory Burdon on Vacation Renting

Topping all this, the Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) charged by Sonoma County (for Casa Pacis) and the Town of Truckee (for Alta Vista Chalet) are ever-increasing and ever more complicated to administer, while they arguably do not benefit our renting guests in any tangible way. In addition, expensive and unreasonably cumbersome STR licensing procedures have been introduced that appear to have only one intended purpose, which is to discourage vacation home renting altogether, favoring the established hotel sector. Sonoma County instituted mandatory vacation rental licensing on 4/11/2025. To get this license is — to express it mildly — nonsensically complicated and expensive. We complied, but — without knowing any actual statistics — we can only assume that many owners of vacation homes in the county do not comply, and they either continue to offer their homes in the market as they did for years or decades before, but now legally non-conforming, or they resigned and withdrew from the market, making vacation rentals more scarce — which does not serve the goal to make access to the beauty of our country affordable.

Additionally, the requirements and mechanics for the quarterly TOT tax returns have become so convoluted that typical hosts can no longer do this accounting themselves and must contract it out to expensive accountants. Particular hurdles are that Airbnb and VRBO must now collect and pay the TOT directly to Sonoma County, which makes the reconciliation of quarterly rental finances for hosts even more convoluted and, thus, time consuming and expensive.

Medium-Term Rentals

These burdensome TOT taxes are required for rental periodes of 30 nights or less. We therefore increasingly focus on medium-term rentals, via “ACViews.” Specifically, when guests rent 14 nights, we unconditionally offer to add 17 nights for the 14-night bottom-line charge. This means that we then bring the rental contract to 31 nights, i.e., into the STR-exempt zone. This equals a 50% DISCOUNT.

The 31 nights must be contiguous; it is, therefore, advisable to make your reservation early. Also, subletting is not permitted.

Upgrading and Repairs

Also falling under the purview of price setting, we humbly point out that ownership of a vacation rental property has become exceedingly expensive. Insurance premiums have skyrocketed. The county authorities now require periodic expensive property inspections. The vacation rental license alone costs upwards of $600 annually. In 2025 we incurred a $9000 septic system repair for Casa Pacis. In late 2024 we performed a 3-month, $20,000 repair/maintenance of Casa Pacis, most of which work is not even openly visible to renting guests. Electricity rates have shot through the roof. The expense for maintaining the vegetation for fire safety around the vacation home has essentially doubled within two years. Even the basic cost of garbage removal, now required by the county as part of the vacation rental license, went “through the ceiling.” All this occurred while we kept our nightly rate well below the standard for what we offer.

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