Houses hard to come by in Gillette

GILLETTE — The housing shortage that’s tightened throughout Gillette and Campbell County in recent years has continued into this year, as few home listings and steep prices combine to strain the housing market.

The local crunch comes on the heels of national turbulence in the real estate market that has affected would-be buyers and sellers alike in recent years.

As of early March, there were 94 active listings throughout Campbell County — including Wright and areas outside of Gillette, said Katie Gray, realtor with Altitude Real Estate and president of the Northeast Wyoming Realtor Alliance.

Wright Mayor Ralph King told Campbell County Commissioners last week that the southern Campbell County town has virtually no lots for sale or rentals available.

Meanwhile home prices have risen from this time last year.

The average listing stands at about $432,700 while the average sale price of $326,300 is also up from last year, Gray said.

“From what I’ve seen, the buyers — you have to be a strong buyer,” Gray said. “A lot of people need between $250,000 and $300,000 (houses). We’re just not seeing those home prices right now. There are buyers wanting to buy, just no inventory for them at this point.”

The 61-day average length of time on the market has also increased from this time last year, and fallen more in line with the expected 60 to 90 days considered standard.

From January through early March, 88 homes were sold in the county.

Although the inventory is low, there are more homes on the market than there were about this time last year.

Housing prices in Gillette began to fall early last year as the number of houses on the market stayed very low, with just 43 homes for sale in Gillette as of early last March. But those prices have since risen, in line with national trends.

“From what I’ve experienced, rentals are still full, people are still buying,” Gray said. “Prices are still up from the previous years.”

Weighing the market

There were 52 residential houses on the market in Gillette midway through March 2022, and 60 houses for sale when factoring in Wright and the rest of Campbell County, according to Multiple Listing Service data from the Northeast Wyoming Realtor Alliance.

The stagnant market is not specific to Gillette.

Last year, the U.S. real estate market hit a low point for this millennium as the 4.09 million existing-home sales made in 2023 marked the fewest since 1995, according to the National Association of Realtors.

That recoil followed a boom that carried through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Home sales took off nationally during the first two years of the pandemic as people took advantage of historically low interest and mortgage rates.

The 6.12 million sales in 2021 were the most since 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported citing National Association of Realtors data, which came a year before the housing market collapsed leading into the Great Recession.

As the Federal Reserve continued juicing its key interest rate in response to pandemic-related economic trends, such as high inflation rates, mortgage rates corrected and cracked 20-year highs by late 2022.

By then the housing market had sputtered.

A mix of weakened demand matched by a low inventory of homes for sale created a malaise for homebuyers faced with taking on significantly higher mortgage rates than offered the year before to cover home prices that weren’t falling.

Many prospective sellers double as latent buyers. Although prices remained ripe for selling, having to re-enter the market as a buyer with limited options and high prices created added complications, and further stifled the number of houses for sale.

Although home prices dipped from what was a record high set in 2022, they stayed relatively high and rose to a new record by September, matched by 23-year-high mortgage rates in October when an average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 7.79%, according to Freddie Mac data.

Mortgage rates have trended down since October, reaching as low as 6.6% in mid-January before settling back north of 6.9% by the end of February.

There’s optimism that with the Federal Reserve eyeing an eventual rate cut, mortgage rates will take on a downward glide path this year.

Addressing a shortage

In the meantime, active buyers and sellers face limited options. Particularly, buyers targeting the mid-level of Gillette’s market have had the toughest position.

“It seems like the buyers are going to have to spend a little bit more just because of the interest rates,” Gray said. “The interest rates are higher right now than they were last year at this time. They’re having to have a bigger monthly payment than some of them are wanting to have. If they’re needing to get into a place, that’s what they’ll have to do to have a home of their own.”

Compounding the issue of high mortgage rates is the lack of homes in the range of $250,000 to $300,000.

Homes in the higher end of that range in Gillette have been hard to come by and gone soon after they pop up.

“Those are going fairly quickly when they do come on the market,” Gray said.

But the shortage affects housing of all kinds in Gillette, including rentals and low-cost homes.

A housing study conducted for the city of Gillette last summer determined that in order to sustain growth over the next decade, the city has to improve upon its housing crisis.

The city needs 1,567 more housing units within the next 10 years, 42% of which would serve as workforce housing, the study found. About 39% of that projection would go toward housing seniors as the community ages.

The number of new residential building permits issued by the city peaked in 2007, with nearly 400 single-family permits and more than 600 multi-family permits.

New permits have trended downward since, dropping below 100 in 2015 and never rising above that figure. In the 20 months from January 2022 through August 2023, the city issued only 42 single-family permits.

What the future holds remains uncertain as houses for sale remain hard to come by and the broader shortage in the community remains unchanged.

“We’re hoping that maybe some buyers will come in and find something they can live with for a little bit,” Gray said. “… We’re trying to help them find housing that fits their needs that they can afford right now.”

By Jake Goodrick

Gillette News Record

Via Wyoming News Exchange