County data examines dispersal of vacation rentals and increase over past two years

Kirsten Wisniewski | December 3, 2025

Andrew Beavers is the Vacation Rental Administrator and Compliance Officer for Cook County Land Services. Beavers took on the role in 2024, and has been tracking and compiling data over the past two years. He presented the information he has compiled to the Board of Commissioners at their November Committee of the Whole meeting.

The data showed a significant jump during the first year that Beavers was in the role. In 2023 the county had 327 vacation rental licenses. That number jumped to 359 in 2024. He said that the 9% increase was likely a result of better record keeping, rather than purely and increase in the number of rentals. The increase in 2025 to 372, an increase of almost 4%, was, according to Beavers, more in line with the increases he expects to see over the next several years.

One statistic that Beavers said he was surprised by was how vacation rentals are dispersed across the county. He said that of the 372 registered vacation rentals, 262 of them were located in Commissioner District 5 on the West End, represented by Ginny Storlie.

Beavers said that while the concentration was surprising, there is a strong history of vacation rentals in that part of the county. He said, “I think that’s reflective of the tourism based economy down there, that for as long as Lutsen has been a place, there have been lodges, resorts, second homes, cabins. And well before the Airbnb and VRBO days, there were people renting cabins on an individual basis.”

For some Cook County residents, the increase in vacation rental units has not been welcome. In an atmosphere where many people struggle to find housing, whether to buy or to rent, some have pointed to vacation rentals as a source of the issue. Beavers disagrees.

“From the data that I see, affordable housing and vacation rentals are not really connected,” he said. “There are always homes for sale. If you go to realtor.com you’re always going to see homes for sale. Our issue in Cook County is affordability.”

Beavers elaborated, saying that the average price of the homes registered as vacation rentals in the county is about $440,000. While some homes might be considered affordable or starter homes, he argues that the majority do not fall into that category. Beavers identified second homes as the greater contributor to the shortage of accessible homes in the area. “Our main industry here is tourism, and the reason tourists want to come here is because there’s, it’s absolutely beautiful, and there’s all sorts of fun things to do, and they get to escape. And that’s the same thing that I believe, drives the real estate market for second homes, which far out match the the vacation rental homes in the county,” he said.

The county has an established body for making decisions about vacation rentals. The Vacation Rental Review Committee last met in 2022, and Beavers explained that they won’t meet again until the a threshold of 395 rental licenses is met.