Supply and Demand

The Town of Saratoga’s lack of a sufficient supply of affordable housing is affecting the ability of local businesses to hire employees.

In this series, the Saratoga Sun will examine the lack of affordable housing in Saratoga and its effect on the town’s ability to grow its economy.

Wendy Barkhurst, owner of White Stone Realty based in Saratoga and Rawlins, is a broker and property manager.

“I have not had a rental vacancy that I have had to advertise for more than two years,” Barkhurst said. “I have people calling about rentals even before the tenants give notice. We have a waiting list and people call at least once a week asking if we have a vacancy or know of anything.

“Some people were living in their RVs over the summer and hoping to find something by winter,” she said. “A lot of people are living with friends--two or three families are living in one apartment. They are only doing this because they have to -- because there is no housing.”

“We do have a lot of roommate situations that you wouldn’t normally have if there was more housing,” she said. It has been like this for the last two years.

Rent is “very high” in Saratoga, she said. Places are available if a person can afford to pay $1,800 or $1,900 a month or more for a two bedroom house. “Most people can’t afford that.” Some houses are as high as $2,700 or $2,800 a month.

Rentals are available, but it is because people can’t afford them, she said.

Amanda Shahadey, broker and owner of Town & Country Realty in Saratoga, said a person used to be able to buy a house for $30,000 in Hanna. “That was before the crash [in the Great Recession].”

Shahadey described the supply and demand for homes for sale in Saratoga as “pretty stable” and “evenly matched.” The for-sale home inventory is “up now,” compared to a few years ago when the demand was higher during COVID.

Jeff Mincy, CEO of the North Platte Valley Medical Center in Saratoga, said finding rentals for his employees is “a little easier” than it was last year.

However, the high interest rates are increasing the number of people looking for rentals, Mincy said. The higher demand pushes up the rent prices.

“The people we struggle [to find housing for] are the entry-level workers like the housekeepers and clerical workers,” he said. “Those positions are just as important as any other positions. We’ve got to clean the toilets and do laundry as much as care for people medically.”

He said the “vast majority” of the houses for sale in Saratoga are over the $300,000 range.

Another factor is the short-term rental market affects the number of homes available on the long-term rental market, he said.

People can put some furnishings in a house and rent it all summer as an Airbnb and make as much renting it short-term as they can all year long, he said.

Stayton Mosbey, director of South Central Wyoming Emergency Services, an ambulance service provider based in Saratoga, said the landlords in Saratoga are “restrictive on pets.”

“We have employees traveling in from out-of-town to work because they can’t find a place to rent,” Mosbey said. We have one employee who works a “couple of days in a row in Saratoga and stays on a cot in the office.” He lives in Cheyenne.

“We have other staff come in from Laramie, but go back home at night,” he said. “One other full-time staff (member) lived in a recreational vehicle at Deer Haven RV Park for several years. His wife worked at the hospital. They make decent money, but financially it’s just too expensive to live here.”