No I haven't abandoned my blog already, just trying to get back to the grind at work. Spring has finally made it to northern Wyoming, and the construction season is heating up. That means the planning director may not get a break until the hell or northern Wyoming freezes over again.
Wyoming's housing market, with the exception of Cheyenne and a couple of other locations, is still in pretty good shape, and by good shape I mean completely schizoid crazy. The energy and natural resource extraction industry plays a big part of it, as well as the "just because you were a stockbroker or doctor doesn't mean that you can't try to be a rancher as well" crowd. The sad thing is that the prices have gotten nuts all across the board. In the town we live in this is partially because of nice vistas of the mountains, good schools, and recreational opportunities. The other part is we built all of three and a half homes in the late eighties.
Right now just about everyone dabbles in real estate. A joke one of my friends tells is that there are two questions of the Wyoming real estate license exam:
1. What is 5% of $100
2. What is 5% of $1,000
Truth be told, I know some pretty nice real estate agents (including a couple that work very hard to try to match people with housing they can really afford), but it doesn't help the insanity much. Keep in mind that this was a community where in 2000, $150,000 could get you a pretty decent pad. Now it can't even get you into many of the subsidized "affordable housing" projects popping up around town. Believe it or not the three bedroom house in the picture (on a 6,150 square foot lot) is listed for $310,000. No, you don't get the ranch, horse, or view of the mountains with that...
3 comments:
It's like you live in California, but without the nice weather year round.
If we weren't heading into summer, you comment would make me cry ;P
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