Real Estate and Construction
From Sustaining Jackson Hole Wiki
The fundamental factor driving real estate sales and construction in Jackson Hole – where there are some 500 realtors – is the relatively small supply of private land. Combine that with Jackson Hole’s increasing appeal as a place to live, and the result is high prices.
Between 1990 and 2000, the median cost of a home in Teton County nearly tripled. People’s interest in moving to Jackson Hole, combined with speculation, resulted in high demand for Jackson Hole’s relatively small volume of housing, leading to this increase. In particular, during the 1990s, Teton County housing prices increased 178 percent, compared to 57 percent in Wyoming and 51 percent nationwide. (See table 4-1.) In 1990, Teton County’s median home price earned it 99th place in a ranking of median home prices in counties across the nation; in 2000, it placed 10th. Among all 3,140 U.S. counties, Teton County ranked 4th in both the amount and percentage by which median home prices increased during the 1990s.
Teton County’s housing stock increased 69 percent between 1990 and 2000, a rate slightly higher than population growth in the same period. (See graph 4-20.) Even with this growth in housing stock, real estate prices escalated rapidly during the 1990s. The number of annual sales, meanwhile, stayed about the same. (See graphs 4-21 through 4-25.) The large gap between the median and mean price (middle and average, respectively) indicates that there is a substantial market for high-end real estate in Jackson Hole.
Between 2000 and 2002, the real estate boom of the late 1990s flattened, with real estate prices steadying or in some cases slightly declining. However, starting in 2004, that trend reversed itself, with a new price boom erupting. Meanwhile, the number of residential building permits and valuation in Teton County decreased. (See tables 4-2 through 4-5.)
Sources: Jackson Hole Real Estate and Appraisal; Rocky Mountain Appraisals; Teton County, Town of Jackson, U.S. Census Bureau
Graph 4-20 In the past three decades, Teton County’s number of housing units has grown 145 percent, 44 percent and 45 percent, respectively.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Graph 4-21
The median price of a house in Teton County nearly tripled in the 1990s, more than five times the growth in the median home price in the state and country.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Graph 4-22
The total number of real estate sales increased by roughly 60 percent between 1992 and 2004, while the total dollar volume of sales nearly sextupled, indicating high demand – and therefore high prices – for Jackson Hole real estate. The mean sales price increased almost four-fold during the same time period.
Sources: Jackson Hole Real Estate and Appraisal; Rocky Mountain Appraisal
Graph 4-23
A look at single-family home sales in the last decade shows that the total number of units being sold is growing slowly, but the mean price is increasing by around $100,000 per year. That mean prices have continued to rise while median prices have stayed relatively flat suggests a large number of sales at the upper end of the market, for increasingly higher prices.
Sources: Jackson Hole Real Estate and Appraisal; Rocky Mountain Appraisal
Graph 4-24
The number of condominiums and townhomes sold annually has more-than doubled in the past 12 years, in part because many of these units are less expensive and therefore easier to buy. After years of steady increase, both mean and median prices leveled off in the past couple of years. As with other sectors, however, that the mean sales price is roughly 50 percent higher than the median indicates a substantial high-end market for townhomes and condominiums.
Sources: Jackson Hole Real Estate and Appraisal; Rocky Mountain Appraisal
Graph 4-25
The relatively low number of residential lot sales in the past few years is a function of the relatively low number of lots for sale, a phenomenon also suggested by the big jump in mean and median prices at the beginning of the decade. The introduction of new subdivisions influences both the number of sales and median price.
Sources: Jackson Hole Real Estate and Appraisal; Rocky Mountain Appraisal
