Where should Park City employees live? Because right now, they can't afford to live in Park City.

• Author: Alsever, Jennifer

THE HOUSING CRISIS IS WORSE THAN EVER in mountain resort towns across the globe--and in Park City, it's increasingly challenging to find affordable housing.

"Help Wanted" signs dot the windows of local restaurants, retailers, and hotels. Tourists have descended on local Airbnb rentals. Home prices are rising, and the number of long-term rentals available is shrinking. This summer, the median home price in Park City rose to $3 million and $1.29 million in Summit County, according to the Park City Board of Realtors and the county.

The number of high-end homes that had a sales price of more than $4 million climbed 241 percent this year, according to Derrik Carlson, co-owner of the Carlson Real Estate team in Park City. He says real estate started popping in the fall of 2020 after COVID lockdowns, and most of those people who bought homes paid with cash. According to Summit County, as much as 52 percent of the area's housing is made up of second homes.

More institutional investors have entered the local marketplace and are developing new single-family housing rental units, acquiring properties, and converting them to short-term vacation rentals. Meanwhile, COVID prompted residents to drop out of the local workforce and triggered the early retirement of 1,922 residents aged 65 and older, exacerbating an already-existing labor shortage. "COVID became the gasoline accelerant overnight," says Jeffrey Jones, Summit County manager.

The amount of owner-occupied housing in Summit County, including Park City and Deer Valley, has slowly diminished to 39.7 percent of the inventory from 44.7 percent in 2000, while vacant housing grew to 49.9 percent from 40.9 percent during that time. Meanwhile, the amount of available rental units dropped to 10.4 percent from 14.14 percent, according to the county.

SHOULD WE BAN SECOND HOMES?

Park City is not an anomaly; affordable housing is a problem nationwide. The National Income Housing Coalition's annual "Out of Reach Report" found that full-time minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in 95 percent of US counties.

But it's particularly vexing in mountain resort towns, which are typically hemmed by mountains and draw wealthy second homeowners, who drive up home prices. In Avon, Colorado, at least 45 percent of homes are second homes, and in Winterpark, it's 90 percent. In the Vail Valley of Colorado, where the median home price is $1.7 million, even higher-paid locals such as surgeons, bank...