VeriStay helps cities, towns and counties find the short-term rentals operating without the registration their rules require, and gives them the evidence to do something about it.
Who's behind VeriStay
Austin EllermanFounder
Austin founded VeriStay in 2026. Before that, he did contract address-verification work for Granicus' Host Compliance, matching short-term rental listings to real properties for local governments.
Doing that work day to day showed him how address identification and compliance really get done, and where the process falls short: slow manual steps, tools that are hard to use, and an industry that hasn't moved forward much in years.
VeriStay is his answer: a platform that's intuitive and simple to use, and still gives jurisdictions accurate, useful data they can act on.
Why we do it
Short-term rentals can be good for owners and visitors, and many communities welcome them. Most also require them to register, pay fees and taxes, and meet safety rules. But rental sites don't publish addresses, so a jurisdiction can know hundreds of rentals are advertised within its limits and still not know which properties they are.
The large compliance platforms are built for big cities with big budgets. Many smaller jurisdictions run their own registration and enforcement, with a few staff and no time to search listings by hand. VeriStay is built for them: a lightweight service that does the address research, so their staff can spend their time on the decisions that need them.
What we believe
- Evidence first. Every address we identify is backed by documented proof that anyone can follow. A jurisdiction should never have to take our word for it.
- Fair to owners. Careful identification protects owners who follow the rules from being mistaken for those who don't, and every letter gives the owner a clear way to come into compliance.
- The jurisdiction decides. We identify; jurisdictions enforce. Decisions about enforcement stay with the people accountable for them.
- Careful with information. We use public listings and the jurisdiction's own records, don't sell anything, and keep each jurisdiction's information to itself. See our privacy policy and security pages.
What we provide
- Collection of the listings advertised in the jurisdiction, kept up to date.
- Address and parcel identification by trained analysts, with saved evidence.
- Checks against the jurisdiction's registration records, and a measure of each unlicensed rental's activity.
- Dashboards, maps, compliance reports, notice letters and an API.
- Help loading the jurisdiction's data and training its staff.
Read how it works, or see our research and reports, including what we found when we looked at Norfolk, Virginia.
Get in touch
We'd be glad to show you VeriStay with your own jurisdiction's listings. Email [email protected], call (513) 202-6331, or request a walkthrough.