Jake Carter is only 27, yet he already owns a home in Breckenridge, Colorado, where the average listing price is $1.85 million. His two-bedroom condo is surrounded by trees, just half a mile from the ski town’s world-famous slopes.
But Carter isn’t a millionaire. He works full-time as an emergency medical technician at a local urgent care.
His condo was priced more than 20% lower than others on the market because it was “deed-restricted,” with stipulations that it could only be occupied by someone who worked at least 30 hours a week in town. In other words: No remote workers or tourists allowed.
To secure the deal last year, Carter also used a local program called Housing Helps. In exchange for adding another deed restriction — that the condo’s price could only appreciate by 3% annually — Breckenridge gave him 10% of the purchase price to use toward his down payment.
“I definitely have this program to thank for my permanence here,” Carter said. “Because I don’t feel that there was any world where I was going to be able to sustainably afford rising rent, year over year, for the future.”
In Breckenridge, home prices have soared more than 80% over the past decade. And what’s happening here echoes what’s happening across the West: A study from Harvard University shows that home prices in the region’s rural vacation areas jumped more than 50% between 2020 and 2023 alone. In towns like Jackson, Wyoming, and Whitefish, Montana, workers are being priced out of housing more than ever before — a problem that affects both the local economy and the fabric of the community.
Most of Breckenridge’s housing still caters to tourists, with 68% of its units being second homes or vacation rentals. And many residents are struggling: A recent study commissioned by Summit County, where Breckenridge is located, revealed that 60% of all renters, and 86% of Latino renters, spend more than a third of their income on housing.
Still, about three-quarters of Breckenridge’s full-time residences — meaning dwellings that are not vacation homes or Airbnbs — are set aside for the local workforce. That’s the highest percentage of any Colorado ski town.
And, since Breckenridge passed a $50 million housing plan in 2022, more than 400 new deed-restricted units have been built. In the next four years, the town expects to add 300 more — a substantial increase in housing stock, given that Breckenridge has only about 5,000 full-time residents.
Colorado mountain towns like Breckenridge are “out front” when it comes to housing their locals, said Elizabeth Sodja, program coordinator for the Gateway & Natural Amenity Region Initiative at Utah State University.
“If you look at the numbers of affordable housing (units) these communities have compared to their population, it’s pretty amazing,” she said.
How Breckenridge has made it work
During the early days of Breckenridge’s local housing push, the annexation of nearby land was crucial, said Laurie Best, the town’s housing director of nearly 25 years. When private companies were interested in developing land outside the town’s borders, Breckenridge offered a deal: The town would annex the property, making city services available — and thus development more attractive — if the developers kept 80% of the units deed-restricted for locals.
The town then engaged in land banking, the practice of purchasing land for future development. Since then, Breckenridge has either built housing on those parcels itself or partnered with private companies to do so.
Preservation came next. In addition to Housing Helps, the program used by Carter for his down payment, the town started an initiative called Buy Downs, through which it purchases units that come on the market, adds deed restrictions and then sells them to locals at a discounted rate.
Today, about 1,700 of the estimated 2,300 resident-occupied homes in Breckenridge are deed-restricted for the local workforce.
“If you live here full-time in the community, and you’re working in the community, you are probably living in some type of publicly assisted housing,” Best said. “There are very few local working households that are in market rate units.”
That even includes high earners. Because a resort town’s workforce is economically diverse, ranging from lift operators in their 20s to doctors with families, Best said, it’s important to acquire and build different types of housing — from one-bedroom rentals to four-bedroom for-sale homes — so that locals can move up the housing ladder as their needs change.
Lessons and limitations
There’s no “secret sauce” to Breckenridge’s success, according to Margaret Bowes, executive director of the nonprofit Colorado Association of Ski Towns and co-author of a 2023 report on workforce housing. “They have made (workforce housing) a priority, and they put their money where their mouth is,” she said.
It helps that Breckenridge has a good deal of money to spend. It’s one of a dozen communities in Colorado that were grandfathered into having a tax on real estate transactions that is funneled into the town’s general fund.
And, since 2006, Breckenridge’s voters have passed two sales taxes, and the town has also enacted a short-term rental fee. Altogether, this generates over $13 million annually, all of which goes into a housing fund that supports programs like Housing Helps. A Colorado bill that would tax vacant homes to pay for affordable housing could provide another source of revenue.
Best has also worked with private developers and large employers, including the ski area and the school district, to “bring money to the table” to help with housing. Overall, she said, collaboration has been crucial to Breckenridge’s housing strategy: She’s spent a lot of time on the phone with Aspen’s housing authority, which runs one of the nation’s original workforce housing programs.
Another key to Breckenridge’s approach? Preserving current inventory.
Like many resort towns in the West, Breckenridge is surrounded by mountains and public lands, meaning that only a limited amount of land is suitable for building. So the town has put a priority on stockpiling existing housing through deed restrictions and buydowns. Best would also love to convert more short-term rentals — Breckenridge has more than 4,000 — to long-term housing. While the town has placed a cap on future licenses in certain neighborhoods, a pilot program that paid owners to perform such conversions fizzled out after a few years.
The town still needs about 1,200 more units to house its workforce, according to a 2023 study. Those needs were made clear last year, when a new apartment complex saw more than 1,000 people apply for 52 lottery spots.
And even when the town provides housing, the area’s high real estate values and high construction costs mean that the housing doesn’t always seem affordable. The cost of a three-bedroom in the newest development is expected to be $780,000, while some townhomes will be in the $300,000 range. “Affordable’s a funny term, because it’s relative,” said Best, who prefers the term “workforce” housing.
Despite everything it’s done, Breckenridge has yet to reach housing nirvana. But for locals like Carter, the EMT, the town’s efforts have meant the difference between staying and leaving.
“It’s created this life that I can live sustainably in my dream town and still feel like I’m able to contribute to my community,” Carter said. “It’s actually just incredible.”
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
