Lawton has 189 properties identified as short-term rentals (STRs) that are advertised on multiple sites, resulting in 535 listings that have been difficult to track, Community Services Director Charlotte Brown told the City Council.
A software program City Hall previously used “did not differentiate between Airbnb,VRBO and Flip-Key,” an online vacation rental marketplace, “and thus duplicated the properties,” she said.
Now, though, the city uses Deckard Technologies software, which enables the city to track all shortterm rentals and ensure they are paying the 7% municipal hotel/motel tax, said Judy Franco, the city’s information technology director.
“This new software will close the loop on compliance,” City Manager John Ratliff said.
When a property owner makes a short-term rental listing online, “This software uses artificial intelligence and social media sites to identify these places,” Franco said.
An ordinance adopted in 2020 allows the City of Lawton to “turn off the water” if the owner of a short-term rental property fails to comply with the requirement to collect the hotel/ motel tax, Ratliff said.
Deckard Technologies specializes in short-term rental compliance and monitoring software for government.
“With thousands of websites listing short-term rentals, tracking down every STR in your jurisdiction is almost impossible without the biggest residential property data archive and the most experienced big data and AI experts to help,” the company states.
Property owners often delist properties and change listing sites, “making it challenging to have a consistent overview of all STRs at any given time,” the company notes. Deckard’s AI technology and data analysis “ensure that STR properties are identified and validated daily, in real time, with updates easily accessible in your platform.”
The company claims it monitors more than 10,000 STRs websites daily.