The center of the sun is a pretty hot place, but it might not have much on the housing prices in the Jackson Hole area.
A study by the Viehman Group on Jackson Hole real estate in 2022 reports that the average price for a single-family home hit a new record — a whopping $5 million.
That’s an especially eye-popping figure given that the average list price for single-family homes in the Teton County seat in 2019 was almost half that, at $2.6 million.
Not everyone is now paying $5 million for homes in Jackson. It’s an average. About 45% of home sales there landed between $1 million and $3 million in 2022, according to the Viehman Group. Just two sales were less than $1 million.
Single-family homes weren’t the only real estate setting new records, either.
Condos and townhome prices increased 81% to $2.85 million, while vacant residential land increased 10% to $3.34 million.
Both are records, the Viehman Group reports.
Fewer Sales Overall
Sales volume, meanwhile, has dropped dramatically, according to the Viehman Group’s report.
There were 57% fewer real estate sales in all categories in the first quarter of 2022 year over year.
But the overall dollar volume dropped just 24% to $2.25 billion — the third highest annual volume in Jackson history.
The volume of single-family home sales, meanwhile, dropped 45% year over year in 2022, while the dollar volume decreased just 41% and totaled $1.003 billion.
Inflation helped buoy the dollar volume of Jackson Hole real estate sales, but it was luxury and ultra-luxury sales that really kept the dollar volume afloat.
Five hotels sold in the valley last year for a combined $696 million, according to the Viehman Group. Those hotels include the Four Seasons in Teton Village, Amangani in Spring Creek Ranch, Red Lion Wyoming Inn, Homewood Suites and Motel 6 in the town of Jackson.
Meanwhile, a complete lack of any affordable housing inventory cut the number of eligible buyers for single-family homes by more than 50%.
That’s a big contributing factor in the overall dip in sales volume, as is an overall lack of available inventory.
That’s not going to get better anytime soon, the Viehman Group’s report suggests.
There are 77 homes listed for sale now on the open market with an average list price of $7.6 million. None of the listings are under $1 million, and just nine are between $1 million and 2 million valley-wide.
Four of the homes are more than $20 million.
Jackson Needs Housing Help
Home prices in Jackson have been rising steadily over the last six years, and a lack of affordable housing for the area’s workforce has been a longstanding trend in what has become one of America’s most popular mountain resort communities.
“Jackson needs help with housing costs,” Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, told Cowboy State Daily.
Yin and his Teton County colleagues – Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, and Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson – all signed on as sponsors to a reprised version of a county optional 1% tax on all home sales that exceed $1.5 million.
Yin, the lead sponsor on the bill, added a provision to his version that would have required all proceeds from the 1% tax to go toward affordable housing.
The tax would have raised around $15 million in Teton County for 2022, Yin told Cowboy State Daily.
This perennial legislation was introduced in this year’s legislative session as House Bill 162, but it never made it to a committee for discussion. It was among bills that remained in the House speaker’s drawer.
“I am open to more ideas and hope we can tackle housing issues in the interim,” Yin said.
Teton County voters did support $70 million of Specific Purpose Excise Tax — a sixth penny — for housing last November, Storer told Cowboy State Daily.
“But we need to do more,” she said. “A local option real estate transfer tax remains the most realistic way to raise additional funds but we need the legislature to give counties the authority to do that. To date, Wyoming Realtors have refused to support that idea, making passage difficult.
“But I’d like to start here in our community to explore options and see if we might find a path forward.”
