Seems like these resort towns need to get control of their land as a common resource.
Residents in Jackson Hole say that many of the houses in the 10,000 population town that had been rentals for service industry workers and ski bums have been bought to be torn down for new construction. The average price of a house in Jackson Hole is $2.5m, more than double what it was a decade ago, and rent for housing set aside for service industry workers over the summer started at $3,000 a month for a 400 sq ft apartment.
The result is an inflated housing market that’s priced out longtime residents. “Tourism drives interest in Jackson Hole, and that interest drives real estate investment, which then raises the cost of living and changes the labor market entirely,” says Chris Dickey, who has lived in Jackson Hole for 17 years and owns a digital marketing agency. “People visit the area a few times and then decide they want to move here. There are plenty of people out there willing to pay $3m to $5m for a home in Jackson Hole, but the problem is that’s not a price locals can afford.”
We used to see bumper stickers — “if we keep buying imports, where will our children work?” — touting domestic industry. No one sees land the same way, that if we sell it to investor/speculators, we will have no place for our children to live or the other folks we need to make sure the work gets done. We can’t keep expecting people to commute further and further for low wage jobs nor should any town take local wages and send them to be spent in some other city or county.
I wonder what the breakdown is of land vs house in a $3-5M home in Jackson Hole. The house won’t be a middle class tract home, of course, so it will all luxe finishes and big spaces, but that’s driven by the land: you’re not putting a 1000 sq foot rambler or bungalow on a piece of view property adjacent to national park. So what if the cost of the land came down, if the speculative value was recaptured through taxes, and houses could be sized more realistically?
Seems like there is a need for some social housing for the “service industry workers and ski bums” who make a place like that work. People visit or settle in those places for the local color but what’s the first thing to go, to be priced out? The Main St diner, the dive bar, the local gear shop (tack or skiing), and with that. All of that is what makes those places what they are. And all just so some hedge-fund plutocrat can flex on his business school friends…