How Vacation Rental Designers and Furnishers Find Clients

How STR designers, furnishers, stagers and photographers find owners in permit records, plan to local rules and reach them by mail, email and phone.

Published Oct 29, 2026 · 35 min read · by Lead Mining Company

Owners buy design, furniture and setup at a handful of moments: before the first guest arrives, when an inspection or renewal is due, when a worn home needs a refresh, and when they add another property. A designer or furnishing company that reaches an owner at one of those moments competes with few others. One that reaches the same owner a year later competes with whoever did the work. Public short-term rental registers make several of those moments visible, because owners in many cities and counties must apply, register or renew before they can rent, and many registers publish a status, a date and a way to reach the holder.

This guide is written for STR interior designers, furnishing and setup companies, home stagers and listing photographers. It covers the permit records that point to a setup job and how to read them, the official local rules that change a design brief, how to segment owners by market, property type and portfolio size, which outreach channel fits each state's data, a worked example in Destin and 30A with real counts, templates for letters, email and calls that stay within the law, how to package offers without invented prices, and how to work with property managers and co-hosts. Counts are from the PermitPulse dataset as of October 2026 unless another source is named.

When an owner needs design, furnishing or setup

Setup work follows events, not the calendar. Five events leave a trace in public records, and each one calls for a different offer.

Before launch: applied, pending or approved

Some registers publish applications before the city decides them. An applicant has committed to renting and has usually not yet bought furniture, booked a photographer or written a listing. As of October 2026, 4,147 records in the dataset carry a pending or applied status. Louisiana holds 3,618 of them, or 87 percent (3,618 ÷ 4,147), nearly all from the New Orleans application register. Texas has 168, Tennessee 121, Colorado 90, South Carolina 77, California 43 and North Carolina 21.

Pending is not always recent. The New Orleans application file keeps open applications from earlier years, going back to 2017, as our New Orleans permit data post shows. Filter pending records by application date and work the last twelve months first. The word also changes meaning between registers. Denver publishes its file as active or pending renewal licenses, so a pending flag there can mark the renewal of a home that is already running.

Other registers name the pre-launch stage differently. El Dorado County's vacation home rental file, which sits behind our South Lake Tahoe page, lists 112 permits as "Approved for Payment", 250 on the waitlist and 20 as incomplete, next to 728 active. An owner approved for payment is close to launch. A waitlisted owner has no launch date: the county caps vacation home rentals in the Tahoe Basin at 900 and charges $190 to join its waitlist. That file has not added a record since it was first copied in July 2026, so confirm a status with the county before you plan a campaign around it.

Newly filed

Where a register publishes a filing date, the date shows when the owner entered the program. 26,549 records carry a filing date in the last 12 months, 9.4 percent of the 283,611 records in the dataset. The largest state pools are Louisiana (6,191), Texas (5,488), Illinois (3,367), Kentucky (2,686), California (1,806), Colorado (1,574), Ohio (1,540) and Tennessee (1,232). By market, New Orleans leads with 6,122, followed by Chicago (3,367), Louisville (1,219), Big Bear and Joshua Tree (1,043), Nashville (872), Traverse City (621) and Portland (592).

A date is whatever the register attaches. It is an application date in one place and an issue or renewal date in another. Where owners must register every year, a recent date can belong to a home that has rented for years. Louisville Metro requires every host to register each rental every year, so a Louisville date in the last 12 months does not prove a new rental. The permit data guide explains what each field holds, and the guide to pending and granted permits covers how fast each segment goes stale.

New to the dataset

Many registers publish no usable date. Florida's state license file is the biggest: only 134 of the 53,152 Florida records carry a filing date in the last 12 months. For files like that, the export's first-seen date stands in. It records the day a license first appeared in our copy of the register. A license that was absent last month and present this month is new to the dataset, which is the nearest public signal of a new rental in that file. It can also be a license the register posted late, so treat it as a reason to check, not as a fact about the property. The fresh records page lists each week's new records by state and register.

Renewal and inspection

Renewals bring owners back to the city, and in several places they bring an inspector. Unincorporated Pinellas County, Florida, renews its short-term rental Certificate of Use every year and re-inspects for safety every two years. Gulf Breeze, Florida, inspects every short-term rental unit every year. Ruidoso, New Mexico, charges a $300 permit fee, renewed every year, that covers the permit, an inspection and notifications. Renewal windows are published, which makes them easy to plan around. Traverse City licenses expire on December 31, and renewals are processed only between 90 and 30 days before expiry. Galveston registrations renew between December 1 and December 31. Destin registrations open on January 1. An owner facing an inspection needs alarms, extinguishers, exit maps, signs and small repairs. An owner who has just renewed has committed to another year of renting, which is a sensible time to offer a refresh.

A new address under a known name

When an owner or company you already serve shows up on a new address, they are setting up another home. Match your client list against each month's new records by owner and business name. A name on two or more addresses is also a portfolio owner, a segment covered below.

What a record does not tell you

A permit record does not say whether the home is furnished, what it looks like, what it earns or whether the owner already has a designer. The PermitPulse export does not carry bedroom counts. A few cities publish them: New Orleans posts bedroom and guest limits with its permit records on data.nola.gov, so you can read a New Orleans permit's limits before you write. The phone on a record may belong to an operator or manager rather than the owner. In New Orleans the published phone and email are the operator's. Use the record as a reason to start a conversation, not as a description of the property.

Signals of a setup or refresh job in permit records, as of October 2026
Signal	Field	Count	What it usually means
Pending or applied	Status, where published	4,147 records	Not yet operating, setup still ahead. Filter by application date.
Filed in the last 12 months	Filing date	26,549 records	Recently entered the program, or renewed where registration is annual
New to the dataset	First-seen date	Changes weekly. In the 30 days to October 23, 2026: 42 in Destin and 30A, 118 in Big Bear and Joshua Tree	A license that just appeared. Check before assuming a new rental.
Renewal or inspection due	Local renewal calendar	Set by each city or county	Compliance kit, signs, refresh
Known name on a new address	Owner or business name	Your own client list	A repeat client adding a home

Local rules that shape the design brief

A short-term rental brief starts with local law. In many markets the ordinance decides how many people may sleep in the home, which rooms count as bedrooms, where alarms go, what has to be posted on the walls and how many cars the driveway must hold. A designer who knows those rules quotes the right number of beds, avoids rework after an inspection and sounds like someone who has done the job before. The table below collects rules from official city, county and state pages. Rules change, and a city's rules often differ from the county around it, so read the current page for the exact address before you quote.

Official local rules that change a short-term rental design brief
Place	What the official source requires	What it changes in the brief
Destin, Florida	2 adults per bedroom plus 4 more per property, capped at 24 per house, applying from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.; an exterior sign with the management company's name and phone; a parking affidavit; a local responsible party who can be at the property within one hour	Bed count, exterior sign, parking plan
Unincorporated Pinellas County, Florida	2 guests per bedroom plus up to 2 in one common area, 10 at most, guests of all ages counted; one off-street space per 3 occupants, rounded up, each 8 by 18 feet, lawn not counted; an interior notice with the responsible party, occupancy, vehicles with a parking sketch, noise standard, trash days and nearest hospital	Bed count, one sleeper sofa in one common area, parking, house-information panel
Pinellas County inspection requirements	A bedroom has at least 70 square feet of conditioned space, sits on an exterior wall, and has a closet, a door and an emergency escape opening; smoke alarms in and outside sleeping rooms and on every story; carbon monoxide alarms within 10 feet of each sleeping room where there is a fuel-burning appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage	Which rooms can be sold as bedrooms, alarm placement
Gulf Breeze, Florida	2 occupants per bedroom of 100 square feet or more, 1 per bedroom of 70 to 99 square feet, plus 2; an annual city inspection	Room sizes decide the bed count
City of South Lake Tahoe, California	Exterior and interior signs with set content; an exit map on the back of each bedroom door; emergency lighting in every sleeping room; a 3-pound ABC extinguisher on every floor; smoke and carbon monoxide detectors; a bear box or animal-resistant carts; indoor noise and outdoor video monitoring; shielded exterior lighting; a lockable hot tub cover	Sign package, safety kit, lighting and outdoor selections
Washington State, RCW 64.37.030	Post the street address, emergency numbers, a floor plan with fire exits and escape routes, the maximum occupancy and the operator's contact in a conspicuous place in each unit; comply with the state's carbon monoxide alarm law	House-information panel, floor plan, CO alarms
Ruidoso, New Mexico	No more than 2 adults per sleeping unit; the annual permit fee covers an inspection	Adult bed count
Charleston, South Carolina	Up to four adults may stay overnight	Bed count, whatever the size of the home
Portland, Oregon	Accessory short-term rentals: Type A for one or two bedrooms and up to five guests; Type B for at most five bedrooms and 10 guests; a resident lives in the home at least 270 days a year	Guest rooms in a lived-in home, not a whole-house install
City of Las Vegas, Nevada	The owner lives on site for the whole stay; no more than three bedrooms, the owner's included	Small owner-occupied jobs

Occupancy caps set the bed count

Most caps tie guests to bedrooms, so every bed above the cap is a cost the owner cannot rent. Run the arithmetic before you draw the floor plan. In Destin, a three-bedroom house may hold 2 × 3 + 4 = 10 people overnight and a four-bedroom house 2 × 4 + 4 = 12. The 24-person ceiling binds at ten bedrooms (2 × 10 + 4 = 24), so an eleven-bedroom house is still limited to 24. A plan that sleeps 16 in a four-bedroom Destin house sells capacity the owner cannot use at night.

Pinellas County works differently. A three-bedroom home allows 2 × 3 + 2 = 8, and the extra 2 must sleep in one common area, so a single sleeper sofa in the living room is all the rule uses. A five-bedroom home works out to 2 × 5 + 2 = 12, but the county cap is 10, so a fifth bedroom adds no guests there. In Gulf Breeze the size of each room matters. A three-bedroom house with two rooms of 100 square feet or more and one 85-square-foot room allows 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 7, not 8. Measure every bedroom before you choose between a queen and two twins. Charleston's limit of four adults overnight means a large bunk room adds nothing for adult groups there, and Ruidoso's limit of two adults per sleeping unit sets the adult count unit by unit.

Legal overnight occupancy by bedroom count under two Florida rules
Bedrooms	Destin: 2 per bedroom + 4, cap 24	Unincorporated Pinellas: 2 per bedroom + 2, cap 10
1	6	4
2	8	6
3	10	8
4	12	10
5	14	10
6	16	10
10	24	10

What counts as a bedroom

Pinellas County's inspection requirements define a bedroom for short-term rental purposes. In a site-built home it needs at least 70 square feet of conditioned space, a place on an exterior wall, a closet, a door or an opening where one could reasonably be installed, and an emergency escape and rescue opening to the outside. A room used to reach another room, other than a bathroom or closet, is not a bedroom. Neither is a hallway, bathroom, kitchen, living room, family room, dining room, den, breakfast nook, pantry, laundry room, sunroom, recreation room, media room or exercise room. South Lake Tahoe's checklist sets a minimum of 70 square feet and at least 7 feet in length or width, and requires an egress window in sleeping areas that meets the code for the year the house was built.

Those definitions decide the most common upsell in this business, the bunk room. In Pinellas a bunk room built in a den or media room is still a den for occupancy purposes, so it adds sleeping spots without adding a single legal guest. Pinellas also prints the escape opening rule it applies, section R310 of the Florida Building Code: a net clear opening of at least 5.7 square feet (5 square feet at grade), at least 24 inches high and 20 inches wide, with the sill no more than 44 inches above the floor, operable from inside without keys, tools or special knowledge. Bars, grilles and covers over that opening must release from inside. For homes built before 1973, the county requires a compliant escape opening in each bedroom under the current code. Keep that window clear and operable when you place beds, desks, shelving and window treatments.

Alarms, extinguishers, exit maps and emergency lights

Safety equipment is part of the room, and inspectors check where it sits. Pinellas County requires smoke alarms in each sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area near the bedrooms and on each additional story, at least 3 feet from the door of a bathroom with a tub or shower. Ionization alarms stay at least 20 feet from a permanently installed cooking appliance (10 feet if they have a silencing switch), and photoelectric alarms at least 6 feet. A battery alarm that is newly installed, or that replaces a battery alarm, must have a sealed battery that lasts at least 10 years. Where the home has a fuel-burning heater or appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage, a carbon monoxide alarm goes within 10 feet of each room used for sleeping.

South Lake Tahoe's checklist goes further. It requires at least one 3-pound ABC fire extinguisher per floor, mounted where it can be seen and reached, with any cabinet or closet door around it clearly labeled. Smoke detectors go in each bedroom, in hallways leading to bedrooms and on every floor, on the ceiling or within 12 inches of it. One carbon monoxide detector goes on each floor, and one in any bedroom with a gas appliance. Every sleeping room needs emergency lighting that lights a path out during a power cut, and the city accepts plug-in lights. A floor plan with the exit path marked hangs on the back of each bedroom door. Washington State requires a posted floor plan showing fire exits and escape routes in every short-term rental unit.

For a designer the lesson is practical. Plan ceiling fixtures and art around alarm locations, leave a visible wall spot for the extinguisher instead of hiding it in a styled cabinet, and choose emergency lights and exit-map frames that suit the room. For a setup company the same list is a product: a kit priced per floor and per bedroom, installed by a licensed trade wherever the work calls for one.

Posted notices and signs

Posted information is where design and compliance meet most often, because the content is fixed by law and the presentation is up to the owner. Pinellas County asks for a notice inside the home with the responsible party's name, address and phone, the maximum occupancy, the maximum number of vehicles with a parking sketch, the noise standard, trash and recycling days and the nearest hospital, and it offers a fillable form. Washington requires the address, emergency contacts, the floor plan, the maximum occupancy and the operator's contact in a conspicuous place. Anna Maria, Florida, includes a required posting under City Ordinance 108 in its registration (Anna Maria vacation rental rules).

Outside, Destin requires a sign that includes the management company's name and phone. South Lake Tahoe's exterior sign must be visible from the street, no larger than 12 by 12 inches and made of weather-resistant metal or plastic, with no laminated signs allowed. It lists the maximum occupants and vehicles, the police department's rental hotline, the owner and property manager and a 24-hour manager phone. The city's interior sign hangs inside by the front door and adds snow-removal parking rules, the trash day and bear-box rule, a text-enabled 24-hour manager number and a note that guests can be fined. Hot tubs need a sign barring use from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., and the street number must be at least 4 inches tall in a contrasting color.

A sign package built to the published content (exterior sign, interior house-rules panel, bedroom-door exit maps, hot tub sign, house numbers) is easy to quote, easy to install and easy to show in a portfolio.

Parking, trash, outdoor and electrical items

Pinellas requires one off-street parking space for every three occupants, rounded up, each at least 8 by 18 feet, and the lawn does not count. A home at the county's 10-guest cap needs 4 spaces (10 ÷ 3 = 3.3, rounded up to 4), and an 8-guest home needs 3. An outdoor redesign that turns a parking pad into a patio can lower the occupancy the county will accept. South Lake Tahoe requires a paved driveway and paved spaces of at least 9 by 19 feet. It also requires a bear box or animal-resistant carts (a bear box holds two cans for homes under 2,500 square feet, three up to 3,500 and four above), indoor noise and outdoor video monitoring that alerts the manager at any hour, exterior lights aimed down and fully shielded, a lockable hot tub cover with an emergency shut-off in sight of the tub at least 5 feet from the water, tempered glass in windows within 5 feet of the water, and no permanent use of extension cords. Each item touches a design choice: fixture selection, lamp placement near outlets, deck layout and where the trash goes.

Furniture under a federal tip-over standard

One federal product rule applies to almost every bedroom you furnish. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's standard for clothing storage units, 16 CFR part 1261, covers free-standing furniture with drawers or hinged doors meant for storing clothes that is at least 27 inches tall, weighs at least 30 pounds and has at least 3.2 cubic feet of enclosed storage. Units manufactured after September 1, 2023 must pass three stability tests, carry warning labels and come packaged with an anti-tip device that meets ASTM F3096. In a rental where children stay, buy units made to the standard, install the tip restraint that comes in the box, and think twice about vintage dressers, which were made before the rule applied.

Where the rules limit the job

In some markets the law limits rentals to part of a lived-in home, which changes the size of the job. Portland's accessory short-term rentals require a resident to live in the home at least 270 days a year. Asheville's homestay permit requires the host to live in the home full time and rent one or two bedrooms, and whole-unit rentals are allowed only in the Resort zoning district. The City of Las Vegas requires the owner to live on site for the whole stay and allows no more than three bedrooms, the owner's included. Miami Beach bans short-term rentals in every single-family home and in many multi-family buildings in certain zoning districts. In those places the typical job is a guest suite or two rooms, and your offer should be sized to match.

Segmenting the owners

A list of every rental in a state is not a campaign. Split it four ways before you write a word: by market, by property type, by how the owner uses the home and by how many homes the owner holds.

By market

Markets differ in three things that matter to you: whether records carry a phone or email, whether they carry a date, and whether a pending status is published. The table shows a selection as of October 2026.

Selected markets by contact fill, pending status and recent filings, as of October 2026
Market	Records	With phone or email	Pending	Filed in last 12 months
New Orleans	33,649	29,231	3,618	6,122
Nashville	18,943	0	121	872
San Diego	8,850	8,850	0	0
Austin	7,757	0	0	344
Orlando and Kissimmee	6,392	5,019	0	127
Big Bear and Joshua Tree	5,328	5,327	0	1,043
Chicago	4,231	0	0	3,367
Destin and 30A	3,359	2,667	0	0
Scottsdale	3,069	3,069	0	0
Louisville	2,562	2,531	0	1,219
Sonoma County	2,424	2,274	0	149
Traverse City	1,530	1,147	0	621

Read the table as three kinds of market. New Orleans, Big Bear and Joshua Tree, Louisville and Traverse City publish both contact details and dates, so you can run a timed campaign to recent filers by email, phone or mail. San Diego, Scottsdale, Destin and 30A, and Orlando and Kissimmee publish contacts but few or no dates, so timing comes from first-seen dates and renewal calendars. Chicago, Nashville and Austin publish dates but no contacts, so a timed campaign there goes by mail. Each market page shows its own fields, towns and newest records.

Local rules shape segments too. In San Diego a host may hold only one short-term residential occupancy license and run only one unit at a time, and licenses expire two years after they are issued (San Diego STRO program). San Diego owners are therefore single-home hosts on a two-year renewal cycle, and a portfolio pitch has no audience there.

By property type: Florida condos and houses

Florida's license file codes every vacation rental license as a dwelling (a house) or a condominium unit. Of the Florida records coded that way, 35,119 are houses and 14,990 are condos, so houses make up 70 percent (35,119 ÷ 50,109). Phone fill is about the same for both: 77 percent of house licenses (27,183) and 77 percent of condo licenses (11,520) list a phone. In the export, house licenses read "Vacation rental - house" and condo licenses "Vacation rental - condo", so one filter splits the file. The Florida condos versus houses guide ranks every town by its mix, and our post on Florida's vacation rental license list covers the state file in detail.

The two classes are different jobs. A condo unit shares a building with other owners and sits under association rules, so ask early about delivery hours, elevator bookings, contractor insurance requirements and what the association allows on balconies. Units in one building can share a floor plan, so one well-documented design can be offered to other licensed owners in the same building. A house brings outdoor space, more bedrooms and a larger install, and it is where pool, hot tub and outdoor furniture work sits. Our post on selling hot tubs, saunas and pool equipment covers that side.

Whole homes and lived-in homes

Some registers say whether the owner lives in the home. In Tennessee, of the records classed by occupancy, 11,396 are marked not owner-occupied and 6,316 owner-occupied, so 64 percent (11,396 ÷ 17,712) are homes the owner does not live in. Tennessee records publish no phone or email, so this segment is worked by mail. Ohio's records list 1,747 as "Property Owner/Non Primary" against 151 as "Property Owner/Primary". A non-owner-occupied home is a whole-house install for an investor. An owner-occupied permit is usually a room or suite in someone's home. Nevada's records go a step further: 149 carry the license label "Short Term Residential Rental (Owner)" and 129 the label "(PM)", which reads as property manager and tells you whom to pitch.

Multi-unit licenses

Wisconsin licenses tourist rooming houses by the number of units a license covers. Of its records, 11,909 cover a single rooming house, 696 cover two to four, 189 cover five to nine, 74 cover 10 to 19 and 27 cover 20 to 39. The 986 multi-unit licenses belong to operators who furnish in quantity, and Wisconsin publishes an email on 97 percent of its records. The Wisconsin license guide explains the classes.

Multi-property owners

An owner or company whose name appears on several addresses buys differently from a one-home owner. They want a standard: the same mattress, the same linens and the same replacement parts in every unit, and a supplier who can set up the next acquisition on a fixed timeline. Group records by owner or business name within a market and count distinct addresses.

Names on two or more addresses in selected markets, as of October 2026 (records are counted as each register publishes them, closed permits included where a register keeps them)
Market	Records	Names on 2+ addresses	Records under those names	Share	Largest name
Big Bear and Joshua Tree	5,328	316	1,557	29%	62 addresses
South Lake Tahoe (El Dorado County file)	1,978	167	659	33%	22 addresses
Scottsdale	3,069	182	636	21%	97 addresses
Destin and 30A	3,359	139	492	15%	29 addresses
Orlando and Kissimmee	6,392	271	816	13%	86 addresses

Statewide in Florida, 5,858 records (11 percent of 53,152) sit under a name that holds two or more Florida addresses, 999 sit under names with ten or more, and the largest single name holds 86 addresses. Three cautions apply. Names are grouped as printed, so "Smith Rentals LLC" and "Smith Rentals, LLC" count as two. One investor may use several LLCs. And in Florida a management company can hold the license for a home it manages, so a big name may be a manager, which makes it a partner rather than a client. The guide to finding multi-property owners shows the method step by step.

Choosing channels by what each register publishes

Registers publish different fields, and the fields decide the channel. Across the dataset, 127,924 of 283,611 records (45 percent) carry a phone or an email: 125,065 have a phone and 64,233 an email. The other 155,687 records (55 percent) give you a name and an address and nothing else.

Contact fields by state and the first channel they support, as of October 2026
State	Records	With phone	With email	First channel
Louisiana	34,063	29,249 (86%)	29,191 (86%)	Email, then mail
Wisconsin	13,374	11,271 (84%)	12,944 (97%)	Email, then mail
Georgia	3,675	3,038 (83%)	3,041 (83%)	Email, then mail
Kentucky	4,029	2,501 (62%)	2,502 (62%)	Email, then mail
Ohio	1,952	1,859 (95%)	1,134 (58%)	Email where present, then mail
New Mexico	2,183	1,268 (58%)	1,258 (58%)	Email, then mail
Florida	53,152	39,690 (75%)	959 (2%)	Mail, then calls after a scrub
California	24,522	19,413 (79%)	101 (0.4%)	Mail, then calls after a scrub
Arizona	5,503	4,790 (87%)	1,721 (31%)	Mail and email, then calls
Michigan	1,530	1,147 (75%)	0	Mail, then calls after a scrub
Texas	57,734	8,565 (15%)	8,764 (15%)	Mostly mail
Washington	29,622	863 (3%)	866 (3%)	Mail
Colorado	10,105	304 (3%)	300 (3%)	Mail
Tennessee	19,532	0	0	Mail
Oregon	6,943	0	0	Mail
Illinois	4,231	0	0	Mail

Tennessee, Oregon, Illinois, South Carolina, North Carolina, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Wyoming publish no phone or email on any record in the dataset, 38,865 records between them. Washington and Colorado publish contacts on about 3 percent of records and Texas on about 16 percent. In those states the letter is the campaign.

Three rules of thumb follow. Where email is published, email first: it costs least per contact and lets you link a portfolio. Where only phones are published, mail first and call second, because a cold call to a personal mobile carries the most legal risk of any channel. Where nothing is published, mail. Address the letter to the owner by name, and use the mailing address where the register adds one (Florida's license file does), because a letter sent to a rental's street address may be opened by a manager or picked up by a guest. Do not visit rental properties unannounced: guests may be staying there.

A worked example in Destin and 30A

Take a furnishing and setup company on the Florida Panhandle that wants owners in Destin and the 30A area. All counts are from the PermitPulse file as of October 2026.

The file

The Destin and 30A market holds 3,359 licenses from Florida's state license file. 2,667 of them list a phone (79 percent). None lists an email. Every record carries a mailing address field, which matters for owners who live somewhere else. By class, 2,353 are houses (70 percent) and 1,006 are condos (30 percent). Houses list a phone slightly more often than condos: 1,878 of 2,353 (80 percent) against 789 of 1,006 (78 percent).

The four towns differ sharply in their mix. The counts below come from each town's page, which groups licenses by the town printed on them, so the rows add to 3,347 rather than the market's 3,359. Two Miramar Beach licenses carry no class.

Destin and 30A licenses by town and class, as of October 2026
Town	Licenses	Houses	Condos	Condo share	With phone
Santa Rosa Beach	1,140	940	200	18%	930
Destin	902	475	427	47%	670
Miramar Beach	782	467	313	40%	629
Inlet Beach	523	458	65	12%	429

A company that sells whole-house installs starts in Santa Rosa Beach and Inlet Beach, where more than four in five licenses are houses (940 ÷ 1,140 = 82 percent and 458 ÷ 523 = 88 percent). A company that sells condo packages starts in Destin and Miramar Beach, where condos are 47 and 40 percent of licenses.

Rules that change the quote

For addresses inside the City of Destin, the city's rules set the brief. Occupancy is 2 adults per bedroom plus 4 per property, so the bed plan for a four-bedroom house targets 12 people, not 16. Every house needs an exterior sign with the management company's name and phone, a small item to add to a setup quote. The owner files a parking affidavit, so flag any outdoor change that removes a parking spot. A local responsible party must be able to reach the property within an hour, so many owners who live elsewhere already have a manager or local contact you can work with. Registration is annual and opens on January 1. The fee is $500 for homes up to 2,499 square feet, $600 for 2,500 to 4,999 and $700 for 5,000 or more, with a $100 late fee after March 31 and a $500 late fee after June 1. That puts a natural deadline on pre-season compliance work.

Santa Rosa Beach, Miramar Beach and Inlet Beach licenses need their own check. Confirm which government covers each address and read its current rules before you quote occupancy, signs or parking there.

Timing without filing dates

Florida's license file does not date most licenses, and this market has no records with a filing date in the last 12 months. Timing comes from two other places. The first is the first-seen date: 42 Destin and 30A licenses were new to the dataset in the 30 days to October 23, 2026, the newest arriving on October 20. If that month is typical, which one month cannot prove, the market adds about 500 licenses a year (42 × 12 = 504). The second is Destin's registration calendar. The January 1 opening and the March 31 late-fee date bracket a season when owners are dealing with the city anyway.

Three lists from one file

New licenses, every month. Pull the records first seen in the last 30 days, about 42 a month at the recent pace. Mail each owner a letter and portfolio within a week. About 79 percent will have a phone (42 × 0.794 = 33), and those numbers can be called as a follow-up after a Do Not Call scrub.
Established single-home houses, once a year. Remove the 492 licenses held by names with two or more addresses, which leaves 2,867. If houses and condos are spread across single-home and multi-home names in the same proportion as the whole market (an assumption), about 2,008 single-home house licenses remain (2,353 × 2,867 ÷ 3,359). These owners get a refresh or compliance offer timed for December, before registration opens.
Portfolio names, by hand. The 139 names on two or more addresses hold 492 licenses between them, and the largest holds 29. Some are investors who want a standard package for every unit. Some are management companies that place furnishing work for their owners. Research each one and write to each individually.

Time and money arithmetic

The data: the Florida file costs $149 as a one-time download, or $99 a month as a state subscription with up to 10,000 rows a month, which covers this market's 3,359 rows and every monthly refresh. Mail: the cost is your printing and postage per piece times the count, so list 1 is about 504 pieces a year and list 2 about 2,008 in one drop. Calls: assume, for the arithmetic only, 4 minutes per number for dialing, a short talk or a voicemail, and notes, then replace that with your own figure after the first day. List 1 is about 33 numbers a month, or 132 minutes. List 2, if you called every single-home house with a phone, is about 1,603 numbers (1,878 × 2,867 ÷ 3,359), or 6,412 minutes, roughly 107 hours. That is why the letter goes first and the phone is kept for owners who reply and for portfolio names.

For a break-even check, divide the campaign's cost by your gross margin on one typical job. The answer is the number of jobs the campaign must win to pay for itself. Use your own margin. No public source gives a reliable response rate for this kind of mailing, and this guide does not invent one.

Outreach templates for mail, email and calls

Many rental owners are individuals, and the phone on a permit record is often a personal mobile. Telemarketing and email law apply to you as a business. This section is practical guidance, not legal advice, so check your plan with a lawyer, especially before any phone or text campaign. Mail is the lowest-risk channel, email follows CAN-SPAM, and calls and texts follow the TCPA and the Do Not Call rules. The guide to calling STR owners under the TCPA and Do Not Call rules covers the phone side in more detail.

A letter with a portfolio

A letter suits a design business because it sells something visual. Send a folded sheet or a short printed booklet with two or three of your own projects, each with before and after photos and one line on what changed. Say plainly how you found the owner, and never make the envelope or the letter look like a notice from the city or county. The direct mail guide covers formats and list preparation.

Dear {Owner name},

I saw in the public short-term rental license records that {property street} in {town} is licensed as a vacation rental {house or condo}. We furnish and set up rentals in {area}: design, buying, delivery, assembly and the final styling before photos.

Enclosed are two recent projects, a {home type} in {town} and a {home type} in {town}, with before and after photos. In {town} we plan bed counts to the local occupancy rule and include the posted notices and safety items the {city or county} lists, so the home is ready for its inspection and its first photos at the same time.

If you are setting up or refreshing the home this season, I can walk through it with you and send a written plan with a fixed scope. Call or text {your number}, or write to {your email}. If you would rather not hear from us, tell us by any of those routes and we will take you off our list.

{Name}, {Company}, {street address}

An email that meets CAN-SPAM

The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide lists the rules, and the law makes no exception for business-to-business email. Use accurate header and "From" information and a subject line that matches the message. Identify the message as an advertisement. Include a valid physical postal address, which can be a street address, a registered post office box or a registered private mailbox. Tell recipients how to opt out, honor opt-outs within 10 business days, and watch what any vendor sending for you does, because the responsibility stays with you. The FTC lists penalties of up to $53,088 for each email in violation. Our post on cold email to vacation rental owners covers sending volume and list hygiene.

Subject: Furnishing plan for {property street}

Hi {first name},

{Property street} appears in {city or county}'s short-term rental records, so I am writing to offer our setup service. We design, buy, deliver and install furniture for vacation rentals in {area}, and we size every bed plan to the local occupancy rule.

Two recent projects: {link to project 1}, {link to project 2}.

If you are getting the home ready this season, reply and I will send a fixed-scope plan after a walkthrough.

{Name}, {Company}
{Physical postal address}
This is an advertisement. To stop receiving our emails, reply "stop" or use {unsubscribe link}.

Calls and texts under the TCPA and Do Not Call rules

Scrub every number against the National Do Not Call Registry before a sales call. The FCC's rule at 47 CFR 64.1200 bars telephone solicitations to residential subscribers on the registry, and it applies the registry and company-list rules to calls and text messages to wireless numbers as well.
Call only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the called party's local time.
Keep a written do-not-call policy and your own do-not-call list, and honor each request within a reasonable time that may not exceed 10 business days.
Do not use an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice to call a mobile number without consent. For telemarketing, that consent must be prior express written consent. The FCC confirmed in February 2024 (FCC 24-17) that AI-generated voices count as artificial voices under the TCPA.
Do not send marketing texts to owners who have not agreed to receive them.
Check your state's law too. Florida's telephone solicitation statute, section 501.059, bars unsolicited sales calls to numbers on the state's quarterly no-sales-solicitation listing and requires prior express written consent for sales calls made with an automated system or a recorded message.

A call that follows a letter should be short and easy to end:

"Hi, is this {owner name}? This is {name} with {company}, a vacation rental furnishing company in {area}. I sent you a letter about {property street}, which I found in the {county}'s public short-term rental records. Do you have a minute? We set up rentals to the local occupancy and posting rules and handle everything from buying to installation. Are you planning any furnishing or refresh work this season? If you would rather we did not call again, I will note that now."

A follow-up sequence

Day 0: letter with portfolio.
Day 7: email, where the record has one, linking to the same projects.
Day 14: one call by a person, only to scrubbed numbers and within calling hours.
Day 30: a second letter with a different project, ideally from the same town or the same building type.
Stop there unless the owner replies, and record every opt-out in every channel the same day.

Packaging offers without invented prices

Packages that match the moment

Offer packages by the moment the permit record shows
Moment	Package	What goes in it
Pending, approved or new	Launch package	Bed plan sized to the legal occupancy, buying, delivery, assembly, kitchen and linen kit, staging for photos, and the posted notices and safety items on the local list
Renewal or inspection due	Compliance and sign kit	Alarm placement plan, extinguishers, exit maps, emergency lights, interior and exterior signs built to the published content, with licensed trades where the work requires one
Established single home	Refresh	Room-by-room replacement of worn pieces, new soft goods and updated photos
Portfolio owner or manager	Portfolio standard	One specification for every unit, spare stock and a fixed setup timeline for each new home
Any of the above	Photo day	A shoot after install, with a shot list built from the legal bedroom count

Pricing from your own numbers

Build each package price from your own costs and show the owner the structure. A furnishing quote usually has five parts: design time (hours times your rate), goods (your cost plus a stated buying or handling charge), freight and delivery, installation crew time (crew hours times your loaded hourly cost, plus margin) and removal of old furniture. Quote design and installation as fixed fees once you have measured the home, and take a deposit before you order goods, because you pay for furniture long before the job is finished. For portfolio owners, price a standard specification per bedroom and per bathroom, so the next unit is a lookup rather than a new quote. Record actual hours on every job and adjust the next quote.

Claims to leave out

Promises about revenue, occupancy, nightly rates or reviews. You cannot control them, and an unsupported performance claim is the fastest way to lose an owner's trust.
Any suggestion that you work for, or are approved by, the city or county. Say you build to the published checklist. Do not say a home will pass.
Photos of work you did not do. Show your own projects, with the owner's permission.
Bed counts above the legal occupancy.

Partnering with property managers and co-hosts

Managers and co-hosts often see a new home before anyone else does, and they often choose or recommend the furnishing company. In several markets the rules put one in place by default.

Rules that put a manager in the picture

Sonoma County: Permit Sonoma lists a certified vacation rental property manager among the things every vacation rental must have.
Destin: a local responsible party must be able to reach the property within one hour, and the exterior sign names the management company.
South Lake Tahoe: the city's required signs name a property manager reachable 24 hours a day, and the required noise and video monitors alert that manager.
Sister Bay, Wisconsin: an owner who lives more than 30 miles away must name a resident agent within 30 miles who can respond at any hour (Sister Bay license requirements).
Nevada: 129 records in the dataset carry the "(PM)" short-term residential rental label, the property-manager class.

Finding managers in the records

Look for business names on many addresses, especially in Florida, where a management company can hold the license. Note the company names on exterior signs in Destin and South Lake Tahoe when you are in the area. Read how managers and co-hosts use the same records, in the property manager guide and the post on finding co-hosting clients, which tells you what they will want from you.

What to offer a manager or co-host

A fixed setup timeline for each new home, from walkthrough to photo-ready, so the manager can promise the owner a launch date.
A standard specification the manager's cleaners and maintenance staff already know: the same linens, the same mattress protectors, the same spare parts. The post on getting turnover cleaning clients shows what crews deal with between stays.
The compliance kit for each market the manager works in, kept current as the rules change.
Clear terms for any referral arrangement, in writing and disclosed to the owner.

Notes for stagers and listing photographers

Stagers and photographers sell into the same moment a little later: after the install and before the listing goes live. Work the same pending, newly filed and new-to-the-dataset records, and partner with a furnishing company so the shoot follows the install. The page for vacation rental photographers shows which city files hold the most recent permits.

Two kinds of rule affect listing work directly. First, shoot and label rooms to the legal bedroom count. A den staged with bunks is not a bedroom in Pinellas County, and a listing that calls it one misstates the home. Second, many places require the permit or registration number in every listing or advertisement. Galveston requires its vacation rental number on every listing. Seattle requires the operator's license number on every listing. Miami Beach requires its Business Tax Receipt number in every advertisement. Honolulu requires the registration certificate number and the tax map key number. Santa Fe requires the permit or registration number in every ad. If you build listings for owners, put the number in.

Mistakes that cost designers and furnishers jobs

Treating every pending record as new. Filter by application date.
Reading a recent date as a new rental in places where owners register every year.
Designing more sleeping spots than the local occupancy rule allows.
Selling a den, loft or media room as a bedroom where the local definition excludes it.
Hiding the extinguisher or blocking the escape window to make a room look better.
Sending condo packages to house-heavy towns, or the reverse.
Calling numbers from permit records without a Do Not Call scrub, or using a dialer, a prerecorded voice or an AI voice without consent.
Mail that looks like it came from the city or county.
Promising revenue or occupancy gains.
Showing up at a rental unannounced while guests are staying.
Pulling the list once. New licenses arrive every month and renewals follow the calendar, so a one-time pull goes stale.

Getting the records

PermitPulse turns public short-term rental registers into one export. Each record carries the owner or business name, the property address, the permit number, type and status, the filing date where the register publishes one, the phone and email where published, and the date we first saw the record. Start with the free address lookup to check a single property, or sign up free for a 25-row sample of any register. A one-state subscription is $99 a month for up to 10,000 rows a month, and the national subscription is $299 a month for up to 50,000 rows. A one-time download is $149 for one state or $499 for the national file. Subscribers can limit an export to permits dated on or after a day they choose, and every row carries its first-seen date, so each month's new licenses are a sort away. See pricing, the page for furnishing and staging companies and the full list of buyer pages. If you want new records sent straight into your CRM, custom lead-generation software builds start at $1,500.

Questions and answers

How do vacation rental designers and furnishers find new clients?

Work the moments when owners buy setup: pending or applied permits, permits filed in the last 12 months, licenses new to the dataset, renewals and inspections, and known owners adding a new address. Public short-term rental registers show those moments in many markets. As of October 2026 the PermitPulse dataset holds 4,147 pending or applied records and 26,549 filed in the last 12 months. Plan each offer to the local occupancy and posting rules, reach owners by mail or email first, and partner with property managers and co-hosts, who place furnishing work for their owners.

Which permit records show a rental before it opens?

Registers that publish a pending or applied status. As of October 2026, 4,147 records carry one, 3,618 of them in Louisiana, almost all from the New Orleans application register. Other registers use different words: El Dorado County, behind the South Lake Tahoe page, lists 112 permits as Approved for Payment. Filter pending records by application date, because some files keep open applications from earlier years, and check what pending means in each register. Denver's file, for example, lists licenses that are active or pending renewal.

Do permit records show bedrooms or whether a home is furnished?

No. A permit record shows the holder, the address, the permit type and status, and a date and contact details where the register publishes them. It does not show furnishing, condition or the current designer, and the PermitPulse export does not carry bedroom counts. Some cities publish them: New Orleans posts bedroom and guest limits with its permit records on data.nola.gov. Use the record as a reason to contact the owner, then measure and confirm on site.

Can I call or text owners whose numbers appear in permit records?

Only within the TCPA and the Do Not Call rules, and many of these numbers are personal mobiles. Scrub numbers against the National Do Not Call Registry, call between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time, keep your own do-not-call list and honor requests within 10 business days, and never use an autodialer, a prerecorded voice or an AI voice without consent. Do not send marketing texts without consent. State laws such as Florida's section 501.059 add rules. Mail is the lowest-risk channel and email follows CAN-SPAM. This is not legal advice.

How do local occupancy rules change a furnishing plan?

They set the number of beds worth buying. Destin allows 2 adults per bedroom plus 4 per property, capped at 24, so a four-bedroom house may hold 12 overnight. Unincorporated Pinellas County allows 2 per bedroom plus 2 in one common area, capped at 10, so a fifth bedroom adds no guests there. Gulf Breeze counts one person in a bedroom of 70 to 99 square feet. Beds above the legal cap cost the owner money without adding a legal guest, and a den or media room does not count as a bedroom under Pinellas County's definition.

How can I tell condo licenses from house licenses in Florida?

Florida's state license file codes each vacation rental license as a dwelling (a house) or a condominium unit. As of October 2026, 35,119 Florida records are houses and 14,990 are condos, and about 77 percent of each class lists a phone. In the PermitPulse export the labels are Vacation rental - house and Vacation rental - condo, so one filter splits the file. Town mixes vary widely: in the Destin and 30A market, condos are 47 percent of Destin licenses but 12 percent of Inlet Beach licenses.

How much does the permit data cost?

PermitPulse costs $99 a month for one state (up to 10,000 rows a month) or $299 a month national (up to 50,000 rows a month). A one-time download is $149 for one state or $499 national. A free sign-up gets a 25-row sample of any register, and the address lookup is free.