Sitting with Liz Pitcher, owner of Grand Valley Lodging a property management business, scrolling through her company’s website and looking through the listings, only a handful are available to move into immediately.

“We have three homes that are available out of 140, we’re at about 98 percent full,” she said.

Since the housing market crashed six years ago, Pitcher has seen her housing stock tighten to this level a few times, but she described those instances as “peaks.” This time it’s different.

“We were used to running 98 to 100 percent occupancy in 2008, and now we’re back to that,” said Pitcher.

Since 2008, the rental market in the valley was what Pitcher described as a “renter’s market.” This spring, something changed.

“This year it’s an ‘owner’s market,’ and it was abrupt, it just flipped in early spring,” she said.

Pitcher is not the only property manager who has noticed a shift. Tayson Rockefeller, a realtor and property manager at Teton Valley Realty said inventory, the amount of rentals available, began to tighten last year.

“In 2014, it just kind of flipped a switch, inventory just fell off, there’s no inventory,” said Rockefeller.

The change began to happen in late February and March according to Rockefeller. Pitcher points to late March and April as when her business felt the change.

Property managers may be more attuned to shifts in the market but renters will feel the tightening as well, if they haven’t already, said Pitcher.

Her company negotiates rental rates with the people who own the homes Grand Valley Lodging rents out, and some of those homeowners want the profits the current market offers.

“We have people living in houses that are underpriced, they will come back to market value at raises of 10 percent for those who are staying,” she said.

For those just moving into units, Pitcher said they should expect between a 10 and 20 percent hike in rents.

Local governments have also turned their attention to investigating changes in the housing market and how those shifts have affected citizens. Teton, Fremont and Madison counties have partnered for a region-wide housing study.

Victor City Planner Brittany Skelton said the results should be available this summer. The data will not just include rental prices but also whether people are able to afford the home they are living in and if it is appropriate for their situation, meaning are there enough bedrooms, bathrooms and other facilities.

“There is such little supply that if you’re someone in the rental market, you’re options are extremely limited,” she said.

Skelton comes to Victor after having worked with Over-the-Rhine Community Housing in Cincinnati, a nonprofit that works on affordable housing issues in the poor and working class Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.

She said, in her opinion, there are things the city can do to help encourage more affordable housing to be built. Addressing water and sewer hook-up fees may not immediately seem like a way to provide more affordable housing, but Skelton said changes like that can encourage innovative designs.

Currently, she said if someone wanted to build a series of small cabins in the city, a $7,500 hookup fee per unit presents a problem.

“All of a sudden that idea of having small scale, affordable housing becomes cost prohibitive,” she said.

In Rockefeller’s view, the economy is finally improving and that is causing rentals to be affected from Victor to Tetonia. He said it took some time for the nation-wide economic recovery to make it to Jackson because of the type of economy the region has.

“There is no economy here, there is no commerce here without recreation, in my opinion,” he said. “Tourism requires a workforce to handle it, a big workforce.”

Pitcher said she always sees a rush for rentals from seasonal workers coming in for the summer, but this year units went faster and for higher rates.

“I think that Teton Valley’s economy is picking up also, just not as quickly as Jackson’s,” she said.

The housing market as a whole, not just rentals, is changing as the economy continues to rebound.

Pitcher said the valley has some new home construction this summer, a change from the until-recently depressed housing market and that means construction firms will start hiring.

“They’re way busier than they were last year, and they’re all hiring extra help, and that means we’ll have more renters that will come through the door,” she said.

Rockfeller said he’s actually had people so frustrated with the rental market that they want to buy homes.

“When people are buying instead of renting, you know it’s pretty tight,” he said.

For now, Pitcher advised people diving into this tight rental market to have a good rental application with the best possible references and good credit history.

“There is no reason to rent to anyone that doesn’t pass muster,” she said.

This article appeared in the Teton Valley News on July 3, 2014.