SEELEY LAKE - This upcoming summer season, Seeley Lake is expecting to see a shift in available lodging. With the main two motels and multiple vacation rentals no longer available for visitors, those traveling through the area may need to reserve a place to stay further in advance or look for alternative lodging accommodations. Simultaneously some employers have seen a lack of available housing affect the size of their workforce.
This past January, The Resort at Paws Up (Paws Up) purchased The Wilderness Gateway Inn, Seeley Lake Motor Lodge and the RV Park behind it. It has been converted into employee housing for both seasonal employees and year-round managers.
During the May 10 Seeley Lake Community Council meeting, Steve Hurst, Paws Up managing director, said that they had been using the motels as employee housing “for quite some time” and that he is aware of the local housing shortage.
“It’s definitely hard to find housing for workers to come here,” he said.
According to the Montana Regional Multiple Listing Service, the average sale price for homes in Missoula County has increased 30% from $358,162 in April 2020 to $509,830 in May 2021. Average days on the market in Missoula County dropped from 60 days in April 2020 to 25 in May 2021.
Clearwater Montana Properties CEO Kevin Wetherell wrote in his April 1, 2021 Pathfinder article “The Seeley-Swan Valley real estate markets are red hot,” Seeley Lake had 65 active home listings April 1, 2020. At the end of March 2021, there were six. He said that homes are often selling at, or over, the asking price and with competing offers. This lack of available homes results in pushing home values higher.
Seeley Swan Vacations Owner Carrie Sokoloski said her company has not had a long-term rental in over a year. This, along with the lack of homes to purchase, makes it difficult for people who would like to find long-term employment.
“You see ‘Help Wanted’ signs all over the community … but yet there’s nowhere for those people to come and stay,” she said.
Tamaracks Resort Owner Jessica Kimmel said Tamaracks has lost a significant part of their workforce because multiple employees’ leases were no longer available.
“We are going to lose blue collar [workers] in Seeley because people cannot live here,” she said. “It’s already happening and it’s really scary because businesses will have to post notices outside [saying], ‘Please be patient with the people who are here to work. We’ve lost half our workforce.’”
If Tamaracks continues to see a lack of housing for staff, Kimmel said they will no longer be able to support various aspects of the Resort like live music, dinner boat cruises, spa massages and yoga events.
“We won’t have the staff to provide the entertainment that we’ve spent five years building,” she said. “And that’s really sad. To invest that much money in marketing, advertising and growth and to have something like this come in and pull out the rug from under you is devastating.”
Tamaracks has had to limit their number of occupants due to a situation involving their septic system. Overall Kimmel estimates that her total nightly occupancy has gone from 130 people to 100. Because Tamaracks is on Forest Service land they are trying to reduce their land impact to adapt to their newly required septic systems.
Kerry Bertsch, co-owner of The Lodges on Seeley Lake, said she believes that the change in lodging will alter the type of tourism coming into Seeley. Rather than a general pool of tourists staying overnight in the motels, visitors will either be resort guests or campers.
She also believes that there will be a growing demand for the resort destination clientele thus a growing need for longer term lodging. This development might pose an opportunity for the community to cater to more destination type tourism.
“Tourists traveling from park to park will no longer be discovering Seeley with an overnight stay,” Bertsch said in an email. “With the increased camping and RV activity that may occur, … I believe our community has [an] even greater need to provide responsible disposal options for their waste, as far from the lake as possible.”
Sokoloski acknowledges the importance of tourists on the local economy and how a lack of housing could impact other businesses.
“Travelers who stay overnight spend more money in town [compared to day travelers],” Sokoloski wrote. “If we don’t have a place for them to stay they don’t linger and they will spend their vacation funds elsewhere. This could have a detrimental effect on our local shops and restaurants that help provide jobs to the people who keep our community alive.”
While she acknowledges issues with the rental and permanent housing availability in the area, Sokoloski believes there is a misconception that the long-term rental market is in conflict with the vacation rental market.
“Vacation rentals are often villainized or considered the cause of the housing shortage,” she said. “For the most part, the people who put their homes in a vacation rental market are not candidates for long term rentals because those people want to use their properties. If they didn’t use them as vacation rentals, occasionally, they wouldn’t put them on the long-term rental market. And the places that are long term rentals, a lot of them wouldn’t be candidates as vacation rentals either.”
After looking at vacation rentals on Airbnb and VRBO, Sokoloski discovered that out of the total 62, some of which overlapped across platforms, only one was ever used as a long-term rental to her knowledge.
Sokoloski said many vacation renters have a long-standing connection to the area but cannot live there full time because of either a job or personal situation. According to her, many hope to eventually retire here.
“All of us know real estate in our area is very expensive so having a vacation rental allows them to still have a property here and it allows them to stay connected to a place that they love and help supplement a little bit of the cost,” she said.
Sokoloski said she has seen her rental inventory decrease over the year due to “a huge spike in the real estate market” resulting in more people choosing to put their homes on the market.
“Based on my experience as a realtor and property manager as well as conversations with owners, COVID was the catalyst that drove up prices and demand for homes, causing homes to sell at all price points, especially those on the lower end of the pricing spectrum that tend to provide the most affordable long-term rental options,” Sokoloski wrote in an email. “Fear of the virus, people working remotely and reevaluating personal/family circumstances led people to sell their properties or take them off the market. Vacation rentals didn’t deprive the market of long-term rentals, a worldwide pandemic that drove people to seek lifestyles in more secluded settings did. COVID certainly took a bite out of my business inventory as well.”
According to Sokoloski, there are currently 43 offerings on VRBO in Seeley Lake’s zip code. Last year there were 56. While there are not as many rentals available as before, she expects the demand for vacation rentals to grow as COVID-19 starts to wane. This is because she believes people have become more comfortable working in a mobile setting and will feel better about working in multiple locations from a distance.
While she does not have the specific occupancy data for her properties, she said she has been completely booked from Memorial Day to Labor Day every year since 2019. She has previously used Seeley Lake Motor Lodge to help house overflow guests but this year that is not an option.
Moe-asis Hotel and Bar Manager Katelyn Lewis said that they plan to open up their lodging by mid-June. Once open they will have 16 rooms available year round.
Despite overnight accommodation changes, Kimmel believes that tourists are still looking to visit Seeley Lake. According to her, Tamaracks has been booked out for the next three years.
“I think that the demand for Seeley Lake is still high,” she said. “I think it’s a beautiful area and people will still try to come here.”
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