This Town Was Paradise, Then Everyone Started Working From Home

[Music] when the pandemic started everything went online and so we could work wherever honestly i was really feeling burnt out of the intensity of new york did you know they have a murray's cheese shop in gunnison yeah that's kind of cool came here to ski it was on the epic pass and i kind of just fell in love with it it was a really cool town i started looking around at apartments and our condos the next thing you know i said i'd put an offer on one you know tyler rogers and bella mcgoldrick are living the dream freed from having to go into a physical office for work they gave up their new york apartment this year and joined a migration called the zoom boom remote workers who've traded urban areas for life a little further off the grid have you heard this phenomenon you know of the zoom town for sure often you speak to locals and they're kind of talking about like the changes that are happening and i'm always like oh that's me it is a little bit of a weird position to be in to be like aware of what's going on and to be what is kind of the problem i guess in some people's eyes what do you hear what do they say people talk about the shortage of housing for local workers there's like a lack of rental space or a place for them to own so yeah i think people are just afraid that this little place will just sort of change and like evolve into something they don't recognize property values have increased hundreds of percent since the 90s here back in the day you could get one of these houses for 60 grand probably and now what does something like this go for a million dollars plus 1.8 2 2 million something that's huge wow [Music] paul brown moved to crested butte in 2008. i love how they did this bathroom it is amazing he now works as a realtor where he has a front row seat to the already tight housing market getting tighter the flood of pandemic demand drove the median home price encrusted butte to a million dollars in 2020 an increase of 38 percent in just one year and there aren't that many homes to go around roughly 30 percent fewer houses were up for sale compared to last year and long-term rentals are almost non-existent this is an example of a house that has tremendous flow and can accommodate a lot of people now this is an example of a home that will rent for that thousand dollars a night plus just because of how gargantuan it is wow oh yeah the view is not poor that's for sure that old saying million dollar views you might as well call it 10 million reviews nowadays so as soon as quarantine lifted last year i would say four out of five phone calls starting in june of 2020 was hey i want to come live there for three or four months so what's happening to the people who lived here you know before this influx yeah so a lot of folks are leaving the valley because they can't find a place to stay anymore and you know you can couch surf or sleep in your car only so long and when the winter hits it's not a viable option at all remote workers aren't the only ones responsible for the crunch homeowners who used to rent to long-term tenants are now charging a lot more for their places as short-term rentals and wealthy out-of-staters are buying up much of the limited inventory as second or third homes who do people blame for these issues here blame is spread around pretty pretty well the animosity is certainly going to be at the people that come to purchase here but don't actually live here or the empty homes is what i think drives people more crazy than the vacations the fact that this is booming must be pretty good business for you it is i feel like there is a fiduciary responsibility to my clients but for every home that i take out of available inventory further exacerbates our problem it's a constant struggle because it could eventually even cost me to lose my roof over my head in june the town of crested butte declared an affordable housing emergency since then the town has put a moratorium on new short-term rentals bought a bed and breakfast to convert into affordable housing for seasonal workers and made it legal for people to camp and park mobile homes on private property now the town's considering a ballot initiative that would add a tax on second homes but not everyone is on board okay a few rules will give everybody a chance to talk i would absolutely discourage clapping and cheering i i do ask for civility and with that let's go ahead and open it uh open it up to the public gentlemen in the back second homeowners are your neighbors a tax that only second homeowners pay but cannot vote on is is divisive i think there's a bit of tone that has entered the conversation that would be kind of reminiscent of the french revolution sort of eat the rich my wife and i give to 14 different charities in this community and uh it would affect our it would affect our donations be careful on the tax i think that there are so many generous creative smart educated ceos and people that really understand what's going on here they want to help don't don't push them away kylina falzone owns two of the most popular restaurants on crested buttes main strip and employs hundreds of workers in town since so many of her employees can't find housing she started renting some rooms to them and is now building new homes where her staff can live everybody wants to be open seven days a week but it's just really difficult without the staff and as you'll see there's help wanted in every window help wanted can you show me around a little bit yeah please follow me this is our pizza line on a busy night we're putting out about 280 pizzas an hour that's a sweat on his he's working hard i'm gonna i'm gonna throw some dough it's a big moment let's go boys how do you do this so you go you make your edge you're gonna go around so make your cross that's the most important part right now right is the crust a lot of my employees live in tents live in vans car camp couch surf but that's not a really great way to thrive and to like work we are building homes for our employees and i could be charging minimum of 2 500 to 2 800 for those those houses but we charge 1500 a month so you're subsidizing your employees to basically make it possible for them to live here yes how do you make that work financially as a business well it really doesn't is there any resentment here you know among the locals towards people who have arrived recently as part of this zoom boom yes there is and i'm a a big proponent against that nobody owns crested butte and it should be available for many people from all over the world to enjoy do you support things like putting a pause on these short-term rentals i have a unique perspective on that because i do have short-term rentals as well in crested butte you know when i can rent it out to locals i do but when i need to make money and not every project that we do can be philanthropic i have to be able to make money to be able to do these types of things when i when i can put locals and i went i will and then when i need to make money i have to as you know one of these short-term rental owners are you part of the problem here some people could say i am but here's the other thing if they put a short-term rental rule on my house i will sell it because i won't be able to make the payment i think my my loan payment it's a crazy loan it's uh i had to buy a partner out of it it's 5700 a month it's a two bedroom two bath i would have to charge a local 56 5700 and how much can you make on it as a short term rental i can make 800 a night so you're easily covering your mortgage as a short term in a week david steffen is one of falzon's employees at the secret stash he lost his housing in june when his landlord didn't renew his lease so what's your living situation now i currently live in my truck [Music] so this is the world's sneakiest campsite so when i had to camp i was like i'll just come up here see your spot it's crazy because you can see the road from here but no one has any idea you're up here [Music] do you consider yourself homeless sort of i was joking the other night that by not living anywhere i get to live in all of my friend's apartments but like i don't have a home i have a car it's not even like it's unaffordable yeah there's some places coming up that aren't affordable but most of the time it's there's nothing to rent if there's nowhere to live there's no one to work and a lot of people see it but a lot of people don't want to do anything about it here's some food if i don't find a place to live i have to leave it's that's just the way it is every single option is not here which sucks because i really like here yeah how does that feel that you'd have to leave it feels like a kick in the teeth the town's on a treadmill right now it's just maxed out and i don't know how long it can stay at this pace before just falling off [Music] you

Channel: VICE News

Views: 2,031,885

Rating: 4.8208404 out of 5

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2020, work from home jobs, remote work, work from home, working remotely, zoom boom, zoom meetings, zoom

Id: WhElNHGN9KY

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/darrellbear]

Colorado is being loved to death.

[u/Harambe6ix9ine]

Too many people have found out that Colorado is a cool spot and now they all want to live there. It's a compliment that causes some problems.

[u/dc2b18b]

I'm confused about the restaurant owner. Why doesn't she just pay her employees more? She owns two of the most popular restaurants in CB. Has she never considered maybe raising her prices?

[u/Fine-Cryptographer73]

Beautiful place. Struggle sounds real. Unfortunate to see this happening.

[u/TheMountainLife]

“A lot of my employees live in tents, live in vans, car camp, couch surf”. “We are building homes for our employees”.

Im not shocked that the owner of 2 restaurants supports the growth of CB but hope she follows through with her commitment.

[u/jkhendog]

It’s Crusty Butt...

[u/wildernessdubs]

Think you're in heaven but you're living in hell

[u/cleoterra]

So was winter park 😔

[u/pueblogreenchile]

GV2H can get allll the way fucked