How we verify STR regulation data
Every data point on STR Rule Watch is traceable to an official source, dated, and reviewed by a human before it is published as verified. Here is the exact process.
1. Official sources only
City pages are built from primary sources: municipal codes, ordinances, city planning and licensing department pages, and state statutes. Industry blogs and news coverage are used only as leads — never as the source of record. Every page lists its sources with the date we retrieved them.
2. Per-field evidence
Each structured field — legal status, permit fee, night caps, tax rates — is extracted with a supporting quote from the source document. A field with no supporting evidence is left empty rather than guessed.
3. Human review before publication
Machine-extracted drafts are reviewed field-by-field against the quoted evidence by our data steward before a page is marked verified. Pages awaiting review are visibly labeled “verification in progress” and excluded from search indexing until approved.
4. Continuous monitoring
We monitor the official source pages behind every city on a recurring schedule. When a source changes, the change is reviewed; material changes update the page, bump its verification date, and trigger alerts to subscribers tracking that city. Every material change is logged publicly in our changes feed.
5. No silent staleness
Every data page displays a “Last verified” date. High-traffic pages are fully re-verified quarterly regardless of monitoring signals. If a page goes more than six months without re-verification, its badge automatically flips to “verification in progress” — we never show a stale date silently.
6. Corrections
Every data page carries a “Report an issue” form. Reports go into the same review queue as monitoring hits and are typically triaged within days. If we got something wrong, we fix the page and log the correction.
Data steward
The dataset is maintained by George Bonaci, founder of STR Rule Watch. Questions about methodology or bulk data access: data@shortrentalrules.com.
What this data is not
STR Rule Watch is an informational research tool, not legal advice. Ordinances are amended, interpreted, and enforced in ways a database cannot fully capture. Always confirm current requirements with the jurisdiction — and for high-stakes decisions, a local attorney — before operating.