Local realtors see a surge in city dwellers moving to Wyoming

[County 10]

Realtors have never been busier as city folk are flooding the housing market looking to move to the Wyoming countryside.

Local real estate agencies like Homesource, Remax, and Gannett Reality’s work-life peaked around May this year, as more out-of-staters starting reaching out for housing opportunities.

Now that the job market has shifted to remote work, people have decided to leave behind their cubicles.

“We’ve sold to people from Florida, New York to even Japan,” George Piplica said, broker for Homesource Reality.

Fremont County isn’t the only location to see an increase. Piplica said that locations such as Cody and Sheridan have been so busy that the agencies are hard to get in contact with.

Age and demographic of those moving to Wyoming vary but they all have the same motive, to leave the city.

Gannett Realtors have the ongoing struggle of finding the inventory that allows people to move into Dubois. Gilbert Whaley broker and owner of Gannet Realtors said the inventory for cheaper housing is rare and their biggest struggle lately is finding rentals.

For Remax All-Star Realtors they have found that on average about 180 houses are on the market at a time. But, it is down by 18% with only 148 houses on the market.

Good affordable houses that start at about $140,000 are the first to sell, but due to the shortage of housing, even the more expensive houses are selling at a faster rate.

“Many of the higher-end houses that sat for a long time are suddenly being bought,” Skye Marie Coleman-Wiez said, contract coordinator for Remax.

The current active average of a house in Riverton sells at about $209,000 while Lander is at a higher cost of $408,000.

Those currently working for the housing market will have a profitable year ahead of them but if the trend continues it’ll also be one of their busiest.