Host uses short-term rental as path to homeownership

A common argument that opponents of allowing more permitted vacation rentals on Oahu make is that they take away affordable housing and ruin the fabric of neighborhoods.

But that certainly wasn’t the case when outspoken vacation rental owner and advocate Brynn Rovito bought a dilapidated Portlock home, restored it and turned it into a vacation rental to provide a pathway to home ownership for herself.

“The house was so termite-ridden, you could see the first-floor through the second-floor holes. The owner hadn’t been able to sell the home for three years. But I loved it and I could see it had promise,” Rovito said, speaking from the deck she put in to capture a view that stretches from Diamond Head to Koko Head.

Rovito bought the four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,000-square-foot home in 2017 for $1.6 million and invested another $200,000 to make it livable. Then she began renting it on vacation rental sites for anywhere from $400 to $800 a night depending on demand. She also donates the use of the home to student groups and nonprofits with ties to Hawaii.

Rovito said the home is unpermitted, but she pays her taxes and has been able to create jobs for two people. She’s also paying down her mortgage so that one day she’ll be able to turn the vacation rental into her permanent home.

“I’ve lived here 20 years,” Rovito said. “Home ownership was never a possibility for me before. There are a lot of empty homes, the county has an opportunity to improve neighborhoods by allowing more vacation rentals or bed-and-breakfast homes. The sharing economy enabled me to start my own business.”

Rovito said she supports regulation of vacation rentals as responsible owners don’t mind “paying to play.”

But if Honolulu City Council won’t even allow a vacation rental once every 30 days, her dream is over and so are the jobs for the people that she employs.

“I would totally have to shut down and sell the property,” Rovito said. “I couldn’t afford to live here myself. No one is going to lease a property like this for a year.”