"Welcome to STRs: the final chapter, we hope."
Avon's senior planner said that to the Town Council on August 23, 2022, opening the second reading of an ordinance that capped off a year of hearings on short-term rental rules. It might be the least accurate prediction on record, because the rules that came out of that process didn't end the conversation. They drew a line, and that line still runs through the middle of Avon's Village Core today, invisible on any listing sheet, deciding which condos can chase full vacation-rental income and which ones are capped no matter what a buyer is willing to pay.
Here is the part that catches people off guard mid-transaction: two condos in the same walkable core, similar square footage, similar price, can sit on opposite sides of that line. One can license every unit in the building as a short-term rental. The other is stuck behind a 15% cap that may already be full, with new applicants waiting for an existing license to lapse before they can get one of their own.
The Boundary Isn't the Neighborhood Edge, It's a Map the Town Redraws
Avon's Short Term Rental Overlay covers a wide swath of the town, but inside that overlay sits a smaller, more valuable boundary called the Town Core. Properties inside the Town Core face no cap on STR-Full licenses. Properties in the overlay but outside the core are capped at 15% of dwelling units for that license type, according to the town's current rental rules. Two other license categories, STR-Resident Occupied and STR-Limited, sit outside that cap entirely, but they come with occupancy or duration restrictions that make them a different product than a pure vacation rental.
The Town Core map isn't fixed the way a mountain range is fixed. It's a planning document the council can and did redraw. In 2022, ordinances 22-08 and 22-09 expanded the core, and town planner Max Morgan told the Vail Daily at the time that every change was an expansion, never a contraction. That detail matters more than it sounds like it should. A building's rental ceiling in Avon is not a permanent feature of its address. It's a political boundary that has already moved once in recent memory and, by the town's own account, only moves in one direction.
Seven Buildings the Line Moved To Include
The 2022 rewrite pulled seven specific residential properties inside the Town Core, according to the same Vail Daily reporting: Beaver Creek West Condos, Avon Lake Villas, Falcon Point, Frontgate, The Ascent, Basecamp, and Lakeside Terrace. Frontgate was new construction going up on Highway 6 at the time, built directly into the expanded boundary rather than added to it after the fact.
| Building | Status before the 2022 rewrite | Status after |
|---|---|---|
| Beaver Creek West Condos | Outside Town Core, subject to 15% cap | Inside Town Core, uncapped STR-Full eligibility |
| Avon Lake Villas | Outside Town Core | Inside Town Core |
| Falcon Point | Outside Town Core | Inside Town Core |
| The Ascent | Outside Town Core | Inside Town Core |
| Basecamp | Outside Town Core | Inside Town Core |
| Lakeside Terrace | Outside Town Core | Inside Town Core |
| Frontgate | Under construction | Built inside the expanded core |
A buyer comparing a unit in one of these seven buildings against a similarly priced unit in a building that never made the list is comparing two properties that can look identical on a spec sheet and function completely differently as an income asset. The only way to know which category a given building falls into today is to check the current map, not to assume the boundary sits where it did before 2022.
Why the Cap Still Matters for Everyone Else
For buildings that remain outside the Town Core, the 15% cap is a real ceiling, not a formality. The town publishes a License Availability Report specifically so a buyer can check whether a given property still has room under that cap before writing an offer, per Avon's official rental rules. If the cap is already full, a new STR-Full license simply isn't available until an existing one lapses through abandonment, ownership change, or revocation.
There's a second layer worth checking before that layer: HOA rules. The town's own guidance tells prospective STR operators to verify that short-term rentals are allowed under the building's association bylaws in addition to confirming the property's zoning status, since an HOA can restrict rentals more tightly than the town does.
The Tax Stack Doesn't Care Which Side You're On
Whether a unit is capped or uncapped, every licensed short-term rental in Avon collects and remits the same 10% total tax on rental revenue: 4% sales tax, 4% accommodations tax, and 2% earmarked for community housing, filed monthly by the 20th through the town's online system. Marketplace platforms like Airbnb and VRBO handle collection and remittance for bookings made through their sites, but an owner who books directly is on the hook for filing it themselves. That tax stack is the constant in the math. The variable is whether the building lets you operate at scale in the first place.
What Doesn't Come With the Deed
One friction point surfaces almost every time a licensed short-term rental changes hands: the license does not automatically transfer to the new owner. Under Avon's ordinance, an STR license stays valid until the operator abandons the use, the property changes ownership, or the town revokes it. A change in ownership ends it. The buyer has to reapply, and if the building sits outside the Town Core, that new application competes for whatever room is left under the 15% cap, which may be none.
This is the detail that turns a straightforward purchase into a waiting game. A buyer who assumes the seller's rental history and license simply carry over can find themselves owning a condo with no legal path to the income they modeled, at least not until a spot opens up.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Write an Offer
- Is this building inside the current Town Core, or in the broader overlay subject to the 15% cap?
- If it's outside the core, does the town's License Availability Report show room under the cap right now?
- Does the HOA allow short-term rentals independent of the town's zoning, and does it cap them further?
- Is the seller's existing STR license active, and does the ordinance require you to reapply after closing rather than simply taking it over?
FAQ
Does a short-term rental license transfer when I buy a condo in Avon? No. Avon's ordinance treats a change in ownership as an end point for the existing license. The new owner has to reapply through the town's licensing system, and if the building sits outside the Town Core, that application is subject to the 15% cap along with everyone else's.
If a building's 15% cap is already full, can I still buy there? You can buy the unit, but you may not be able to license it as a full-time short-term rental right away. The town's License Availability Report shows current room under the cap for a given property, so it's worth checking before you assume a rental income projection is achievable.
Are all condos in the Vail Valley subject to the same rules as Avon? No. Vail, Beaver Creek, and unincorporated Eagle County each set their own short-term rental rules independently, and a cap or fee structure in one town doesn't carry over to a neighboring one.
Buying a condo in Avon's Village Core on price-per-square-foot alone leaves out the one variable that decides what the unit can legally earn. If you're weighing two buildings that look the same on paper, Denton Advisory Group can pull the current Town Core status and license availability for each one before you write an offer, so the decision is based on what the property can actually do, not just what it costs.
