For the week of June 27 - July 3, 2001

Home costs 
outpace wages

Upper valley housing trends 
and traffic congestion related

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Over the past decade, the cost of housing in Ketchum and Sun Valley increased almost twice as fast as did wages.

While the toursim industry of Ketchum-Sun Valley drives the economic machinery of the Wood River Valley, most of their employees must drive south to find a place to live. Express photo by Willy Cook

That continuing divergence helps explain the increasing traffic congestion on Highway 75.

The relationship between wages and housing costs is included in an economic analysis of Blaine County commissioned by the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber of Commerce. Completed by Dean Runyan Associates of Portland, the study was released in May at the chamber’s annual Economic Outlook Breakfast.

An estimated 6,000 workers commute to Ketchum and Sun Valley daily. Of Ketchum’s 7,810 employees, 62 percent commute from outside the town. Of Sun Valley’s 3,850 employees, 69 percent commute.

Over the past decade, average earnings per worker grew by 4.8 percent per year, considerably less than the 8 percent to 9 percent annual growth in home sale prices, the study points out.

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In 2000, the average sale price of Sun Valley and Ketchum homes was more than $1 million, compared to about $500,000 in 1992. The average cost of Hailey and Bellevue homes in 2000 was $218,000.

The average sale price of single-family homes in Sun Valley and Ketchum increased from 24 times average annual earnings in 1992 to 35 times average annual earnings in 2000.

"Overall, average priced homes sold in the Sun Valley/Ketchum and Mid Valley areas appear cost prohibitive for median income households in Blaine County," the study concluded.

These numbers "speak to the growing lack of diversity in Ketchum and Sun Valley, but primarily in Ketchum," Blaine County Housing Director Gates Kellett said. "The question is, do you want diversity and do you want these people living in your community?"

As the cost of housing and residents’ incomes diverge, "the commute is going to get longer, and the number of people on the highway is going to get larger," Kellett said. "They certainly are connected."

 

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