Short-Term Rental Ban Just Got Overturned in Village of Oak Creek

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]So, any of you who have been watching my videos about the pros and cons of living in the Village of Oak Creek here in beautiful Sedona, Arizona, probably remember that almost every time I say one of the advantages is that the Village of Oak Creek Homeowners Association restricts short-term rentals that are less than 30 days. And that makes it so that you can feel comfortable living in the neighborhood because there are not going to be a Airbnb or short-term rental moving in next to you. But, recently that has changed and last month, which was April 2026, there was a meeting for the homeowners by the Village of Oak Creek Association and I attended that meeting and there they explained how the Village of Oak Creek is no longer able to enforce that short-term rental ban. So, in this video, I'm first going to play you the clip of what went down at the Homeowners Association so you could hear it directly from the horse's mouth what happened and why it happened. I'm going to give you a little bit of insight on how the other homeowners reacted, how I feel about this myself personally, and what I think may happen here in the Village of Oak Creek to real estate sales in the future.

[00:01:14]>> [music] >> My name is Dawn Dickinson. The channel is Living in Northern Arizona where I'll teach you everything there is to know about living in the Northern Arizona towns. I am a real estate agent in Arizona, so if you ever have a question about buying or selling a home, please reach out to me. My contact information is always in the description below. Now, I sell primarily in Sedona and Verde Valley, but also I have partners in Flagstaff, Prescott, Phoenix, and even Tucson. So, if you have a question about buying in Arizona, please reach out to me. So, one thing I want to say before I get on to the basics of this video is why it's very important for you to have a local real estate agent when you're looking to buy and sell in one of these areas who knows the community. Not all agents are going to know about this new change that happened in the Village of Oak Creek, especially if you're looking for an agent who is one of your Phoenix agents. So, there's another thing that I have noticed happened recently where I am looking at listings at the local MLS in the um that are listed by a Phoenix agent, say. And there's the HOA addendum, and in there it shows the capital improvement fee that is way incorrect because of January 1st, they introduced a $2,000 capital improvement fee that the people buying in the Village of Oak Creek are going to have to pay, and the Phoenix agents don't seem to know about that.

[00:02:45]So, that's not even listed in the HOA addendum, and they're not going to tell you about that until you come to the closing table and realize you have to cough up an extra $2,000 cash to make your sale complete. So, um if you don't want any [clears throat] surprises like that, again, if you're thinking of buying or selling in Sedona or in Village of Oak Creek, very important that you use a local agent. So, let me get down to what's happened here in the Village of Oak Creek. Of course, many of us were very happy. We moved here in the Village because you could not have short-term rentals lower than 30 days, which means that I can live here and not have someone behind me having a party house where there's somebody new every weekend or uh across the street. There's long-term rentals, but it's happy because those are people who live here for years. They're part of the communities. People don't like short-term renters nearby because there's often a lot of noise, a lot of traffic. You'll see them leave garbage out and then have a lean and knock them out overnight. Or the other thing that's very annoying is we are a dark skies community, and people will have the bright lights blaring, and uh they can be very annoying when you're trying to sleep and the lights across the street are blaring and they hit you on the window. So, a lot of the residents don't like short-term rentals and that is why they bought their house in the Village of Oak Creek and not one of the other communities. But, apparently, and I'm going to play you the clip directly from the meeting uh just recently, some homeowners didn't like it and so they hired lawyers and we've been going back and forth with lawsuits. Is that banned? Because it was made as an amendment to the HOA rules.

[00:04:23]Um eventually, lawyers said it was unenforceable. Went back and forth uh all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court who refused to hear it, so it got kicked back and long story short, you're going to hear all of the details, but now no longer can you restrict the short-term rentals here in the Village of Oak Creek. So, let me play how it went down at the meeting and when that is over, I'm going to tell you what the reaction was, what my thoughts were, and if you, of course, are interested in buying the Village of Oak Creek, it's important that you know that. if you're thinking of using it as a short-term rental, you can do that now, but if you're thinking of buying, just realize that now some of your neighbors could convert their home to a short-term rental. So, let's listen to how it went down in the Village of Oak Creek Association meeting last month. The Village of Oak Creek Association was formed in 1981.

[00:05:19]And since that time, the association has maintained a strict no no short-term rental policy.

[00:05:28]For many years, Oak Creek relied on the Yavapai County ordinance that per- permit prohibited renting um residential property for fewer than 30 days.

[00:05:41]So, in 19 2016, the the legislature passed a law preventing counties and cities from restricting house residential property owners to rent their homes.

[00:05:55]This change left it up to the HOAs to establish their own rules regarding short-term rentals.

[00:06:02]In response, Boca proposed an amendment to our master declaration in 2017 restricting new rentals for a period of 30 days.

[00:06:12]This amendment passed with a strong approval.

[00:06:17]Two separate lawsuits were subsequently filed by Boca members seeking to invalidate this amendment. And in both cases, the court ruled in our favor confirming the amendments.

[00:06:32]But in 2022, another lawsuit was filed challenging short-term rental amendments.

[00:06:39]The plaintiff argued that they had purchased this property prior to 2017 and had no notice that the amend that an amendment could later restrict their ability to attempt to conduct short-term rentals.

[00:06:55]Boca lost the case.

[00:06:58]The case hinged on a decision from Callaway versus Dreamland ruling that required 100% membership approval for an amendment that was not originally listed in the original master declarations.

[00:07:13]So, if we went out and and asked you if the sky was blue, we'd probably have some people who would be voting no.

[00:07:23]Anyway, uh the original documents did not the short did not address short-term rentals.

[00:07:30]And therefore, the therefore, that ruling applied.

[00:07:34]Our lawyers appealed very this very unfair ruling.

[00:07:39]And they used a six-unit HOA and applied it to HOA of over 2,000.

[00:07:46]All HOA attorneys that we spoke to have expressed the same sentiment.

[00:07:51]Oakcreek litigated this case all the way through to the Arizona Supreme Court.

[00:07:57]And although the Supreme Court declined to hear our appeal, >> [clears throat] >> it therefore confirmed the lower court ruling, which struck down our amendment.

[00:08:07]At that time, based on legal guidance, we interpreted the ruling to apply only to the plaintiff.

[00:08:16]However, the same attorney filed another case for another Oakcreek member uh that seeked to do short-term rentals.

[00:08:26]The attorney argued that the court ruled that the entire amendment was null and void.

[00:08:33]After consulting with our attorneys, four other HOA attorneys, and a judge, we have concluded that our amendment is not enforceable, and therefore void.

[00:08:46]The Village of Oakcreek has long taken pride in being a community that does not encourage short-term rentals.

[00:08:55]But this situation is one that the legal system has presented us.

[00:09:02]Oakcreek will continue to uphold community standards to the fullest extent of the laws We've changed attorneys.

[00:09:10]We've contracted with a firm that has extensive HOA experience.

[00:09:14]Presently, we're setting up rules and guidelines that we can present to you, the members, that want to engage in short-term rentals.

[00:09:25]What we are proposing that that um will be that that those who want a short-term rental need to register every year with with our office, and submit submit their contact information, name, address, telephone number, along with the agency that will be renting the property.

[00:09:45]Uh we will then give them a list of conditions using county ordinances on that so that what they can and cannot do.

[00:09:56]To reinstate to reinstate the Arizona courts have ruled our 2017 amendment is invalidated and unenforceable.

[00:10:06]Therefore, short-term rentals are allowed in our community.

[00:10:10]Presently, uh we do not see a very large increase in properties in our community at this time.

[00:10:17]Hopefully, the atmosphere and character of this of this norm in Boca will continue.

[00:10:26]And this legal dilemma will not have a long-term effect.

[00:10:31]Hate to say it, but that's where we are.

[00:10:34]All right. So, now you see how it all went down. Let me tell you that uh there were a lot of questions at the meeting. And there were a lot of homeowners at the meeting. The board said that typically there's maybe five to 10 people in attendance at these monthly meetings. And in this month, there were probably 50 or more people.

[00:10:56]And you can be sure they were just here to uh find out about the short-term rental ban not being enforceable. So, everybody's raising their hands, wanting to know how it went down, if there's anything that we could do to stop it. Basically, the residents were very angry. Now, I want to say I am angry about this as well. Um although it may not be as bad as some people are fearing. And and I will tell you my theory on that. But, what makes me angry about this is it's the world we live in that you can have a community that's been living in harmony for 10 years with the rule, and suddenly somebody comes in and they don't like the rules. So they hire an expensive lawyer and they overturn the rules so that everybody else in the community that doesn't want it is impacted because one person or two people don't like it.

[00:11:48]So I don't like I feel like now we're not safe anywhere because lawyers can just come in and and sue people and change everything and then the people who've been living in harmony for years, you know, now are all affected and nobody cares because the lawyers are getting paid and and that's how it goes. So that probably is what has me the most angry. The other thing is I don't want a short-term rental in my neighborhood. I don't want one next to me. I do know that they're very loud. A lot of the residents of Sedona feel like they have been just pushed out and forced to leave. People that have lived here for years. I moved here in 2018 thinking this is where I was going to stay and I was going to work my last years until retirement and then I could have a peaceful retirement and now I'm like, is it going to be peaceful here? I don't know. The other thing that I don't like about the short-term rentals is I have a couple dogs that are always barking and if there's a party house nearby, the dogs are going to be out there barking at them going to be a real problem. So and I know it's also difficult to enforce when they've got any party, you know, having a party next door, you call the cops, they can't always come out. Of course, in the Village of Oak Creek, we are not incorporated so we don't have a police force. We have to call the the County Sheriff. So all of these uncertainties that are going to go down, I'll have to say people were asking questions for about 45 minutes after the announcement was made in the meeting and people were very very upset. Now, here's what I'm thinking could actually happen.

[00:13:16]There may not be that much difference in the community because if any of you have been paying attention in the news, we have something that we call Airbnb bust because what happened is during COVID everybody on the planet wanted a short-term rental. They all bought them.

[00:13:35]They were making maximum profit, but the market did get very saturated and here in Sedona you see a lot of these that are being sold off. People that bought them, they have them for a year, maybe 2 years, realize a couple of things. One is it's not passive income. Yes, you can make money out of them, but it's really not passive income. There's a lot of work involved. You have to have a lot of people involved. You have to have a property management company who's taking a cut. You have to have cleaners coming in. You have the platform fee. So, there's a lot of work involved in something that's supposedly passive income. The other thing that's happened is vacancy rates have declined drastically in the past few years. So, a lot of these homes are sitting unrented for, you know, a month, 2 months at a time and that also eats into the profitability of your short-term rental.

[00:14:29]The third thing is that interest rates are higher now. So, in order to make enough money to buy a high-priced house here in Sedona and pay 6, 7, 8% interest, you have to have it rented all the time. And so, a lot of these are being sold off. People realize they're not so profitable. So, I am not sure if the climate here in the Village of Oak Creek is going to change that drastically.

[00:14:54]I do expect there will be some of these turning into short-term rentals, but I don't think it's going to be the massive buying frenzy that we saw a few years ago. Especially if anybody gets on the internet and does research, just go to YouTube and search for Airbnb bust or, you know, profitability of short-term rentals and that and it is a little bit discouraging to new buyers who are thinking in investing in these. Now, there are a couple of positive things that could happen because I personally don't sell very many of these. I do sell primarily in Village of Oak Creek more than I do in West Sedona. So, I do sell a lot of people who want the nice tranquil living and I do believe that will continue.

[00:15:38]Now, the one positive thing though is that there are a lot of people that buying in Sedona.

[00:15:44]A lot of my clients at least are part-time residents. They live in Arizona for a few months and then they live back east in, you know, Vermont or Washington or Oregon and they come here, you know, for a few months and then they go back. So, some of those people may want to rent their house short-term when they're gone for the summer or if they're gone for the Christmas holiday.

[00:16:09]They could supplement their um expenses for owning a property, which I think was originally the whole idea of short-term rental Airbnb. And then, you know, everybody went nuts and had to have one. So, I think that could be a plus. There is another thing that personally might be good for me is I've been thinking recently, should I retire in the next few years? Now, what's ironic is I moved here to Sedona so I could retire. But now I'm like um the only reason I wouldn't want to retire in Sedona is because my family is in Phoenix and they don't come up to see me very much. So, I might want to go and stay I do have a condo in Phoenix. Just retire at the condo in Phoenix and I don't want to sell this house. This is the only thing that's keeping me from retiring sometimes is I don't want to sell this house, but on a retirement income can I afford two places, you know? So, that might allow a person like me, I could retire, I could move back to Phoenix and then during the months that are busy, spring and fall, I could short-term rent this place, and then I could keep this place, retire, and come here in the summer and the winter months. So, for a person like me, it might not be bad because it would give me that option. And I do have a lot of buyers who are, like I say, part-time residents that maybe they could rent their place out just a little bit while they're gone, and that would supplement the cost that it has to owning two homes, which is difficult when you're retiring to own two homes, you know, like I could retire if I wanted to sell one of my homes, and I don't want to.

[00:17:49]That might keep me working for a long time because I I like having a house here and having my primary residence here in the Village of Oak Creek and a secondary residence in Chandler so that I can go down and visit my kids.

[00:18:02]Otherwise, I'd see my kids twice a year.

[00:18:04]So, for people like me, that could be a benefit. Also, I say I don't sell that many short-term rentals, so maybe they're not as popular as everybody think. I I do believe there's a reason for that, though, is because I don't post any videos on my channel saying how great short-term rentals are. So, if a person is looking to buy a short-term rental in Sedona, they're probably not going to find me because I don't have those types of videos. Maybe I I should make one, but um it's it's not something I'm excited about. So, I usually only post videos on things that I I like to endorse. So, so that could be why I don't sell any, but maybe or I should say I don't think I've never sold them, but I don't sell that many of them where other agents do sell more of those. So, maybe if I posted more on "Hey, move to Sedona and Airbnb your place when you're not here," maybe I would find more of those types of buyers. But typically, I don't. So, those are my thoughts. That is how it went down. I hope you enjoyed hearing the clip right from the board on how it went down rather than me try to interpret it. Also, my thoughts on, yes, I am angry that lawyers have the power to do this and we can't really do that much about it. But maybe it won't change housing prices or the um community as much as people are fearing and maybe it could be a good thing for people that are getting close to retirement or have more than one house.

[00:19:31]Would allow them to keep both homes. So that's it. I'm curious what you guys think. If you are residents of the village, what you think or if you're thinking of moving here, would that change your decision to pick Village of Oak Creek over West Sedona or Uptown. So any thoughts you have, please put it in the comments. If you are interested in buying or selling a home in Sedona, Village of Oak Creek, Verde Valley, uh please reach out to me. That is my primary area where I help people buy and sell homes, move to Arizona. Um if you enjoyed the video, please do me a favor and give me a thumbs up. Consider subscribing. I post videos like this every single week. So this is the type of information you'll find on my channel. Again, my name is Don Dickinson, realtor in Northern Arizona.

[00:20:16]I hope you have a great week and I hope to see you again back here on this channel again next week.