Dallas Short-Term Rental Alliance Offers Free Classes Ahead of 2026 World Cup Boom
Share News:
When the FIFA World Cup’s first matches kick off in June 2026 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, millions of visitors will descend on the Metroplex looking for lodging during the two-month event. With an estimated regional economic impact in the billions, the Dallas Short-Term Rental Alliance (DSTRA) has organized free classes this week to educate would-be home rental hosts looking to cash in on the opportunity.
The group wants to educate new hosts to operate their short-term rentals responsibly and “be good neighbors,” Lisa Sievers of DSTRA told CandysDirt.com.
“Hosts will be able to go ahead and get their listing put up and know precisely what they need to do the very next day with a heavy emphasis on best practices and doing things the right way,” she said.
Sievers said the tournament is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city to put its best foot forward and for residents to make some extra money by renting their homes on platforms like Airbnb.
“People are entrepreneurial in nature, and look at where we are in our economy right now. Who doesn’t need a few extra bucks so they can afford health insurance, groceries, pay their property taxes, you know? It’s very difficult right now,” she said.
The classes are scheduled for both Nov. 14 and Nov. 15 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Oak Cliff Assembly. They’re identical, so you only need to attend one if you’re interested. Each session will walk attendees through the basics of listing a home, setting property rules, understanding local regulations and hotel-occupancy tax requirements, and designing guest-ready spaces. The sessions are going to conclude with a happy hour featuring cleaning, security, and supply vendors.
Best practices or not, not everyone’s a fan of short-term rentals operating near their homes. Media attention around party houses and some repeat problem properties has soured some residents in Dallas, Arlington, and elsewhere on the notion of short-term guests staying in their neighborhoods.
“A party house problem is really just the tip of the iceberg,” Texas Neighborhood Coalition co-founder and Arlington resident David Schwarte previously told CandysDirt.com. “The real problem is the destruction of the fabric of the neighborhood as people you knew and trusted are replaced by a revolving door of strangers.”
Neighborhood coalitions have been active at city halls in North Texas and at the Capitol in Austin, lobbying for bans on the premise that “hotels” don’t belong in single-family neighborhoods.
Their legality across the Lone Star State is somewhat up in the air due to a lack of regulation, leaving a patchwork of local rules and jurisdictions duking it out in court — such as in Dallas, where years-long litigation is still underway while short-term rentals continue to operate.
Sievers said some Dallas city officials might attend the classes this week. Despite the city’s attempts to institute a virtual ban on short-term rentals, there’s been acknowledgement in staff presentations on World Cup preparations that they will be an important part of lodging capacity. According to a UT Dallas economic study citing Texas Comptroller data, the Metroplex has roughly 115,000 hotel rooms spread across 15 North Texas cities.
“I know the city wants to capture as many of those tourist dollars as possible, and I think one of the things that the city council would probably like to do is bring some of those tourist dollars to their particular district with so many hotels [concentrated] downtown,” Sievers said. “The way we do that is by putting short-term rentals front and center. It’s a very good way for us to show our mom and pop shops around the area that we care about them, and so that way everybody kind of gets a little piece of the pie.”
