Truckee, CA — Good Morning Truckee, a community forum hosted by the Truckee Chamber of Commerce, will be held early Tuesday morning with keynotes to discuss the future of planned programs in the area and highlight what the community can expect hosted someone. Look at mortgage rates and real estate in the coming months.
One of Truckee’s planned programs, the Envision Tahoe Program, is a 12-month economic initiative focused on complex resilience strategies to bring Tahoe communities together to strengthen local prosperity. is. In addition to this proactive initiative to help local communities become less dependent on seasonal tourism, one of the plans is to also include affordable workforce housing in the future.
“Envision Tahoe’s commitment is to use the community data and information we collect to understand our strengths in the region and how we can better plan for a future that is less dependent on tourism,” said the CEO. said Heidi Hill Drum of A Tahoe Prosperity Center member said during the conference: “We don’t necessarily want to be 72% dependent on tourism. We are working on ways to ensure that workers in that industry get good jobs along with other industries in our community.”
In 2020, tourism workers around the Tahoe Basin felt the effects of the pandemic, including significant job losses in the industry, ultimately forcing many businesses to close for extended periods during their normal peak season. .
“In 2010, the economy was 42% dependent on tourism, whereas in 2017 it was 62% dependent on tourism,” Hilldrum said. “When the pandemic hit in March 2020, it was of course tourism workers who were most affected.”
One of the positive data points discussed at this conference is that the Truckee/Tahoe area is overall highly educated compared to other neighboring areas.
“We have a lot of college graduates and advanced degrees in our area, which is good if you are looking to expand your opportunities in other areas,” said Hill Drum. says. “Businesses looking to start a business here or hire locally can thrive because we have a highly educated workforce.”
Envision Tahoe’s initiative emphasizes the resilience of the community, but one of the issues many locals struggle with is soaring housing prices for the average income earner in the area.
3 times of [home] Average median home prices over the past nine years have been around $1 million, making them out of reach for tourism workers. The average wage for someone in our area is about $53,000, which equates to a house costing about $160,000. I can guarantee you have never seen anything on the market in that range,” said Hildrum. “Even if the median income of dual-income households doubled hers, it would be very difficult to find affordable housing.The housing crisis is real.”
The Envision Tahoe program works towards resilience strategies through multiple mobility segments, but affordable housing is at the forefront of this program. Jeff Brown, owner of Tahoe Mountain Realty, shared his expert insight into recent changes and activity in the real estate market, as well as his predictions for the future of affordable housing.
“A lot of the real estate market is about momentum as opposed to objective truths of right and wrong,” said Brown. “What we’re seeing now is really, eerily normal over a 10-year span,” Brown said.
Brown added by citing the current real estate market as an example compared to the 2008 recession. In this example, if the community experienced a price drop proportional to his 2008 recession, housing costs would fall by 40%, he said. , median house prices will eventually return to their June 2020 levels.
“I think most people who bought a home from that moment onwards over the past 26 months had a pretty good idea. “They weren’t buying on the assumption that they were sitting on a pile of stock. The point is: [there’s] There are not many pains in the market. “
Looking to the near future for the housing market, Tahoe’s economy will be affected differently than a typical market. This is mainly due to the significant number of second home owners in the area.
“For better or worse, we’re doing so many deals in second homes and consumers are so wealthy that they’re not so sensitive to interest rates, especially at this time,” Brown said. “The threat of rising interest rates has had little impact on affordability in our region. Even if the value decreases proportionally, it is not affordable for the typical worker.”
Affordable housing for Tahoe’s local workforce is not optimistic in light of current housing market trends, but the Envision Tahoe program aims to provide year-round housing for locals. We are working hard to fill the gaps in the future. Economy.
“We look at housing as economic development. It is a fundamental strategy for ensuring future economic resilience,” said Hildrum. “When local employees have a wide range of housing opportunities and can stay and work where they live, we see communities thriving more. Instead of having to make money only during the peak season months of the year, you can change the structure of your local economy to bring spending to local businesses throughout the year. can do.”
For more information on the Tahoe Prosperity Center’s Envision Tahoe program, please visit https://tahoeprosperity.org/envision-tahoe/..
Madison Schultz is a reporter for The Sun’s sister paper, the Tahoe Daily Tribune. Her contact is her [email protected].