Rehabbing old Wyoming homes a niche in tight housing market
SHERIDAN — Green kitchen counters, popcorn ceilings, glass-block walls and shag carpeting are design features of a bygone era.
When Brandon Finney, general contractor and owner of Letrac Development in Sheridan, sees that 1970s and 80s style, he sees potential.
“Take an older home with good bones but one that has depreciated,” Finney said. “To me, I like the challenge. You have a vision. You walk into a house that hasn’t been touched in 35 years, and have a vision of what it could look like in the modern era, in 2025. Pulling that off, seeing it coming together, and remembering how it looked six months before - it’s pretty neat when you achieve that.”
Wyoming’s housing market is tight, lacking in much-needed stock. In many places like Sheridan, the cost of new construction is high. Land prices have also soared, and there isn’t a lot of room to grow outward.
Finney sees this as a challenge also: find older homes on existing lots that can be updated and added back into the market. Describing a hypothetical home that has lost much of its value located near Meadowlark Elementary, Finney said to envision a house where the HVAC system is old and the electrical panel is set at 100 AMP versus 200 AMP.
“Maybe the kitchen has that green countertop, and there’s shag carpet,” Finney said. “If you take that home, and redo the kitchen with tile, add a nice bathroom with glass doors, a new vanity, modern light – now you’re starting to get forced appreciation.”
In addition to finishes, location matters.
In an older neighborhood, an updated home counts for a lot. But to take a “Powderhorn home and stick it in the Downer Addition, you may not get the comps to bring up that value,” Finney said. “It is not going to appraise and be worth that much.”
Some people call this kind of remodel “flipping,” a real estate strategy that involves buying, renovating and selling homes quickly for a profit. For Finney it’s a way to find hidden gems within the community, and create movement within the market.
“When you can sell that home to a family as a brand-new home, and allow someone else to live there for 20, 25 years before it needs a major rehab, that’s rewarding. It is a cool process, and it’s neat when you achieve that,” Finney said.
Remodels, rehab loans and federal legislation
It isn’t just general contractors updating homes. It’s also become more popular for homeowners themselves to choose a remodel. Some even buy a home in need of some extra love, doing the work themselves.
“There’s a lot of remodeling in general going on,” Tim Bork, manager of the Knecht Home Center of Sheridan said. “We’ve seen quite a big increase in decks, and we’ve also seen an increase (in demand) for things like new kitchen cabinets. We have a lot of jobs coming up that are kitchens, bathrooms, fireplaces, all being put in.”
Economic uncertainty may have an impact on new construction, Bork said, and it sometimes pencils out to remodel your own home over moving up.
“I’m personally remodeling my house as we speak. I’m adding a new bedroom and bathroom for these reasons,” Bork said.
Finney said the most value-added updates happen on the first floor of a home, particularly in bathrooms and the kitchen. Annie Wedgewood, president of the Wyoming REALTORS ®, said that remodeling older homes is a trend Realtors have seen across the state for many years.
“I know a number of people who have said that they can’t afford to upgrade to a new house, but they can afford to remodel,” Wedgewood said.
Wedgewood said other buyers are interested in buying a home that needs extra love -- often called a distressed property. Those buyers can use rehabilitation loans to do the work immediately after buying a property.
“They can finance those repairs right out of those loans. I once did 18 of those loans during a 12-month period in 2017,” Wedgewood said.
Crucial to that process, she said, is finding a lender that services rehab loans, as well as a contractor that will work with the lender and the consumer. Wedgewood also recommended working with a knowledgeable Realtor, as Wyoming is a buyer due-dilligence state.
“It’s really important that a consumer, when they’re purchasing one of these homes that has been remodeled, or they’re getting ready to utilize a rehab loan, use a knowledgeable Realtor to help them, make sure they do inspections,” she said.
Sometimes a remodel may make a property look nice, but might not be structurally sound, she said. Other older homes in Wyoming have quirks, she said.
“Take where I live, in an old coal mining town like Rock Springs. The original town of Rock Springs was built on top of coal mines, so it’s important that consumers are aware of what’s under those older homes, and how deep those mines might be under a house,” Wedgewood said.
Going a step further, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., along with Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., reintroduced their “Whole-Home Repairs Act” (S.127) on Jan. 22.
The bipartisan bill would create a national five-year pilot program to help families maintain their homes through grants and forgivable loans aimed at addressing housing deterioration and limited access to affordable home repairs.
The bill would provide resources for essential repairs and preserve and revitalize housing across the nation, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
In an email to the Sheridan Press, Lummis said that “bureaucratic red tape continues to pain low-income families throughout the Cowboy State when they apply for federal home repair grants.”
“I partnered with Sen. Fetterman to pilot a program that would make this process easier to navigate for low-income homeowners and small landlords to return their properties to safe conditions for Wyoming families,” Lummis said.
Other challenges remain, including high list prices.
The median estimated property value in Sheridan County is $395,170, representing a 6.8% increase over the past year.
“There are homes (that have depreciated) that are priced as if they are already renovated. A home that is listed at $400,000 might need $150,000 of work,” Finney said.
But when a remodel works, it really works.
“When there’s a vision, and people see what an older home can become, it is awesome,” Wedgewood said.
This story was published on June 7, 2025.