Ketchum, Idaho, Has Plenty of Available Jobs, but Workers Can’t Afford Housing
Coeur d&#x27;Alene, ID is about to go through this same thing.<p>Housing market ramped up values.  Landlords are raising rents across the board.  There was a recent local article where one rent was raising from $800&#x2F;mo to $1400.  One of the apartment buildings in town went from $1250&#x2F;mo to $1400 for a 1bd apartment (had to help move my friend from there) and apparently a large portion of the people in the building are behind on rent.
When I went to rent a uhaul the lady said all her trucks have been pretty busy.  All of their storage units are full of either people who are moving to town or people who have nowhere to go (her words).<p>The jobs which are unable to be filled local are the ones which were typically taken by the 18-30yr crowd.  Even though they are paying considerably over minimum wage now there is still a massive shortage of workers (many restaurants are shutting down 1-2days a week due to lack of staff...particularly back of house staff).
McDonalds in town is paying $14&#x2F;hr now to start...minimum wage is $7.25.  
My pet theory is that the people who normally filled these jobs condensed their living expenses during covid.  Moved back in with parents, moved into multi person dwellings. etc.  but also even still they realize there is very little hope.  If you make the average rate of pay in town $20&#x2F;hr you can barely rent...and you need to make 3x that to even be considered for the &quot;average house&quot; in town.
From my viewpoint I do not see a solution.  Either we have tent cities or everyone who speculated and bought in a bubble without paying any attention to what &quot;rent the town can bear&quot; is going to take a massive loss (50% at least).<p>My personal opinion is that this issue is largely caused by vacation rentals.  It isn&#x27;t that everyone is moving here (we have had that since the 70s) it is that everyone moving here is buying 2 houses and turning what was once affordable rentals into unregulated hotel rooms that cost $6k&#x2F;mo.  Idaho enacted laws in 2017 to prevent any area in the state from blocking vacation rentals in any way.  Ketchum, Coeur d&#x27;Alene, Boise...are all seeing this issue.<p>The next big crash will come when the large portion of remote workers who moved here are asked to come back to the office.  If they refuse they won&#x27;t be able to find a comparable job anywhere in the area.  What was once a &quot;steal&quot; and &quot;so cheap&quot; now becomes way out of their price range once they are required to find local work.  Again, I don&#x27;t have a solution.  Just observing from the trenches.