HSC real estate sales, availability changes

The Independent Record sat down with Kerri Manig from RoundTop Real Estate and Christine Johnston and Steth Daniels of Properties West Real Estate to discuss real estate prices, trends and availability in Hot Springs County. This is part two of a series, see the March 31 issue for part one.

For the past two years, property prices and their availability in Hot Springs County have experienced a significant change. There is a very high demand of buyers seeking to purchase properties here in Hot Springs County and yet there is now a low supply.

Cenus data shows Wyoming’s population grew by 1,536 people between July 2020 and 2021. That’s an increase of 0.3%, above the nationwide average of 0.1% in the same time period. Based on real estate sales and availability, Hot Springs County is now home to many of the state’s newest residents.

According to some of the local real estate agents, the reasons for this are multifaceted. Realtors voiced their optimism and spoke about the affects to the future of Hot Springs County.

Last week’ article featured discussion on how the market has changed, availability and buyers,

The realtors also provided information about how property situations differ when it comes to residential, rural or commercial.

Johnston said, “More vacant land sold last year than the last ten combined.”

The vacant lots range from one acre to five acres and even up to 20 acres or more.

Johnston added, “We’ve seen a few new houses go up and now they’re talking about doing a subdivision south of the town at Rim Rock.”

Manig added her perspective and said, “I think it’s challenging. In fact, I have a couple who made an offer here in Thermopolis on an out-of-town property. Now we’re looking out of our county because we just don’t have anything, but not very much in Wyoming really does.”

Manig also said for commercial properties, “There is just starting to get some interest. We’re starting to sell a few things that we’ve had on the market forever. There are still a lot of people that want to be out of town but there is hardly anything. So I think it’s availability. There’s more available in town, but when something’s out of town and priced right, it’s snatched up really quick.”

With these changes in real estate, it begs the question, what is the future for Hot Springs County? The realtors provided their thoughts. Daniels said, “I think it is optimistic. I’m as optimistic as I’ve ever been in ten years of doing this. The town seems to be in a good spot right now.” As to his reason, why? Daniels replied, “The downtown. It seems like businesses downtown are at a good level. Doesn’t seem to be as many vacant storefronts. Things that I kind of base Thermopolis off of are: how many restaurants do we have? How many different little stores downtown do we have?” 

Johnston mentioned a variety of new businesses and new business owners who have started operating in Thermopolis and even in the downtown area.

Manig said, “I think we’re going to grow and I don’t know how or what it’s going to do as far as the town grows. Because a lot of people seem to be retired or they work at home, so I don’t know what it’s going to do as far as infrastructure.”

Daniels continued on the subject of the potential of Thermopolis and said, “I think we always looked more on the real estate end, as Thermopolis always seemed to have a good bang for your buck. People could come here and their money seemed to go a long way in our market as far as what they could get compared to places like Cody, Lander, Sheridan, and others that seemed to be attractive, popular communities in Wyoming.

“And when we would get calls with this new influx of buyers, it wasn’t like, hey, I’m calling about this specific house. They’re like, ‘Tell me about your town, your county, what do you have?’ And it was almost like you had to pitch them on the idea of Thermopolis because they’re like, ‘Well, we’re also looking at real estate in Cody, Lander, Sheridan, and Buffalo.’” 

“Those similar communities, similar recreation opportunities, similar, I think location benefits you know, the river and the mountains and stuff, hunting, fishing, all that. I think we always had talked about Thermopolis having the potential for people to talk about. Well, Jackson was this hotspot. Well, then, you know, people get pushed out of Jackson because they can’t afford to live there.”

“So then they look at Cody and Lander and Dubois and Sheridan and it’s like, well, we could be like a Dubois and Ten Sleep and pick up some of these people that don’t necessarily need to live in Thermopolis to pay for their property in Thermopolis if that makes sense. I think whatever the response was after COVID in late 2020 and 2021, we think that just sped that process up.”

“Instead of being five or ten years out of maybe becoming the next destination in Wyoming to compete with those other places, it seemed to just speed us up till where it happened all of a sudden.” 

Johnston’s opinion or observation is that buyer demographics seem to be shifting to younger families and fewer retirees, but would have to view data of school enrollments to verify if that is true.

Daniels added, “I wouldn’t say that the last year has been all retirement people or anything like that. I would say it’s still a good mix.”

With the potential of an increase in tourists visiting Hot Springs County, there is the issue of lodging for them. There have been reports that the hotels and motels have fewer vacancies.

Therefore, the opportunity of having short-term rentals such as Airbnb or Vrbo becomes a potential solution to embrace the growth. Johnston said she agrees wholeheartedly and that it’s a growing pain problem and Daniels said, “I think it’s been a positive thing.”

Manig commented on the matter and said, “A lot of people I have are people searching now. They want to do the Airbnb thing. And so they’re looking for those types of opportunities.” Manig added she has a handful of people she’s working with. 

Daniels continued and said, “It’s obviously been a boost for us, a benefit to have another avenue of buyers to come in and look at our market. If they’re looking for vacation rental properties, that’s just a new clientele that we get to work with. They’ve come in, they’ve bought properties that usually need some work, and they’ve been able to put the work and money into it.”

“That’s a benefit for the community to have some of these older homes that otherwise weren’t going to be able to attract a buyer to be able to have the resources to get them caught up to date. And these people have been willing to do that and spent the money. “

Johnston continued and said, “I think what’s been a really positive change is that people like that have come in here and they’ve taken care of some distressed properties that maybe were priced a little higher. Once you start that elevation of those things, once you bring that baseline up, everybody else kind of brings it out.”

For now, it is still a strong sellers market and prices are holding on the high side.