The city of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, population 13,000, is in the midst of a housing crisis so bad that the local hospital is losing candidates left and right to the soaring real estate market.
The small mountain town, about a three-hour drive from Denver, can’t find a human resources chief for the city because the $167,000 salary offered will no longer allow anyone to buy a home in the area.
The self-described cowboy ski town has been known primarily as an area where aspiring Winter Olympic athletes come to train among locals who are generally middle-income professionals.
The formerly quaint ‘cowboy ski town’ of Steamboat Springs has become a vacation rental hotspot, where the median price of a single-family home has skyrocketed to $1.8 million since 2020.
The ski town has previously been known primarily as an area where aspiring Winter Olympic athletes come to train among locals who are mostly middle-income professionals.
That reputation compared to other, more glamorous ski towns like Vail, Aspen, Jackson Hole and Sun Valley.
But that reputation no longer matches the reality of the city, where a doctor, willing to pay more than a million dollars for a house, is repeatedly outbid by out-of-town buyers offering excessive and cash prices.
According to a NBC reportThe town’s local ski resort has been renting a hotel for its employees to live in because the houses they used to be able to rent are now on the market as expensive, short-term rentals for visitors.
Loryn Duke, director of communications for Steamboat Ski Resort, told the outlet: ‘Houses used to be for employees and hotels for guests. Now houses are for guests and hotels are for employee accommodation. We have great staff who are just starting their careers or have young families, but they just aren’t able to put down those roots.”
“I know it’s very difficult for people outside of mountain or resort communities to even understand, but housing is so sky-high that unless you’re extremely wealthy, it’s unattainable,” said Margaret Bowes, executive director of the Association of Colorado Ski Towns.
Steamboat, as well as other formerly picturesque mountain towns and tourist destinations across the American Southwest, have been hit by the pandemic-fueled real estate explosion.
Remote workers, short-term rental investors, and second-home buyers have sprung into action, causing home prices to essentially double with no signs of falling anytime soon.
In Steamboat, local officials are trying to ease the tension by proposing the construction of thousands of new housing units on a 534-acre ranch that the city’s housing authority purchased with a $24 million anonymous donation.
In phases, the office wants to build more than 2,200 units. Sales and rentals of the properties would be restricted to those who live locally full-time and meet certain income requirements.
Even residents who oppose the project, considering it too big for a city with limited infrastructure, understand that the housing problem is real.
Steamboat, as well as other formerly picturesque mountain towns and tourist destinations in the American Southwest, have been hit by the pandemic-fueled real estate boom.
Remote workers, short-term rental investors, and second-home buyers have sprung into action, causing home prices to essentially double with no signs of falling anytime soon.
Since 2020, single-family home prices in Steamboat have increased 80 percent to, on average, $1.8 million. For existing homeowners, their property taxes have skyrocketed, on average 86 percent.
Those numbers put even starter home ownership out of reach for anyone making less than $200,000 a year, and even for that level of earners, home prices make it unattractive to take high-paying jobs. in the zone.
A local real estate agent for the past two decades told NBC, “We’re seeing across all segments of the market that even well-paid professionals are turning down jobs because they spend little time analyzing housing costs and can’t do it.” he.
“People who come here pay a million dollars for a basic house, a totally basic 50-year-old house.”
The president of the local hospital, Soniya Fidler, said that “no worker is immune” to exorbitant housing prices.
“I think probably every week there’s someone who comes back and tells me we lost someone because of housing,” he said.
Nearly a 3-hour drive from Denver, Steamboat is a small mountain town known for its authentic feel and stunning natural beauty.
The town’s local ski resort has been renting a hotel for its employees to live in because the houses they were once able to rent are now on the market as expensive, short-term rentals for visitors.
The hospital, to stop the hemorrhage of staff and potentially attract professionals to fill positions, some of which have been open for two years, has focused on residential real estate.
The hospital, seeking to stop the hemorrhage of staff and potentially attract professionals to fill positions, some of which have been open for two years, has ventured into residential real estate.
The institution is currently building 42 apartments that will be rented at prices no higher than 30 percent of the hospital employee’s income.
‘It’s difficult because we are here to provide medical care, we are not here to deliver houses. Typically, if we have money to spend, it’s on state-of-the-art equipment and upgrading our facilities,” Fidler said.
“But we don’t want to have to close services, especially since we don’t have the staff to do it.”