INYO HOMEOWNERSHIP APPEARS THROTTLEMYRED

The number of owner-occupied residences in Inyo County has dropped to a new low in 2025, according to County Assessor Dave Stottlemyre, who presented the data Tuesday at a Business Resource Center event in Bishop.

The figure is based on the number of homeowner exemptions on file with the assessor’s office. The exemption allows owner-occupied homeowners to deduct $7,000 from their assessed property value, resulting in an annual property tax savings of about $70. Homeowners apply for the exemption once, and it remains in place until the property is sold or is no longer owner-occupied.

County assessors track these exemptions every year, making them a long-running indicator of owner occupancy.

Records show a steady decline in homeowner exemptions beginning around 2007, a trend that has continued for nearly two decades. Seeing that there might be a message hidden in the data, Stottlemyre began to research it.

“It’s like if you put a frog in boiling water, it’ll jump out,” Stottlemyre said. “But if you put the frog in water and slowly heat it up, it’ll just sit there.”

While the data does not definitively prove that residents are leaving Inyo County, it also does not rule that possibility out. Stottlemyre said the decline could reflect changes in housing behavior rather than population loss.

High mortgage rates, stricter lending qualifications, and overall affordability may be pushing more residents to rent rather than buy.

“It could also be that young people are living at home more,” one woman in the audience pitched in. “That they’re more likely to stay rather than fly the coop, so to speak.”

Stottlemyre also cited a study examining investor-owned housing in rural California counties, and said the problem could be that there’s an influx of people buying out locals.

The study found particularly high investor ownership rates in counties such as Sierra (83%), Trinity (77%), and Mono (74%). According to Stottlemyre, Inyo County’s investor-owned housing appears to be “around the 60% range.”

Investor-owned housing refers to properties that are not the owner’s primary residence.

Stottlemyre said that in Inyo County, most investors are not large corporations but rather small-scale owners, like families, couples, landlords, and vacation-home owners.

The data suggests that an increase in non-owner-occupied properties could help explain the decline in homeowner exemptions, but not everyone agreed with that conclusion.

Inyo County has no timeshares and far fewer short-term rental properties than investor-laden Mono County. And while there may be some informal room renting within the climbing community, those arrangements would not be reflected in exemption data.

Instead, Bishop Realtor Randi Pritchard offered a more optimistic interpretation of the trend.

Pritchard said younger buyers are still entering the market, but often with nontraditional support systems. Many rely on family assistance, trusts, or roommates to make ownership possible, which are arrangements that may not always appear clearly in exemption data but still result in owner occupancy.

She also said current market conditions are discouraging investors, not attracting them.

“We’re seeing less investors, in my opinion, due to the fact that prices are at a point where no investor would actually want to purchase a rental because the cash flow isn’t there,” Pritchard said.

Despite differing views on investor activity, Pritchard said Inyo County is undeniably facing a housing inventory problem. Homeowners are staying put longer, slowing the natural turnover of housing stock.

“In the past, five to seven years would be the homeownership cycle; people change, they move up or they move down,” she said. “People [now] seem to be staying in those homes longer, so there’s not as much turnover.”

Fewer homes entering the market means less opportunity for new buyers, which compounds affordability issues and limits housing options for local workers and young residents.

The slowdown is also being felt by the county government, Inyo County Clerk Danielle Sexton said.

Her office has seen a significant decline in land transfers since 2007, resulting in reduced tax revenue.

“It’s a huge downward trend,” Sexton said. “And with our county being so small, and being a general-funded county, when those tax dollars aren’t coming in, more general fund dollars have to pay for my staff instead of recorded-document fees.”

Tyler Beadle, a title officer at Inyo Mono Title, said his experience closing transactions aligns with the data. He estimated that 80–90% of the properties he closes involve buyers purchasing a third, fourth, or fifth home.

Speaking from the perspective of a younger resident, Beadle said many of his peers have left the area entirely.

“I have lots of friends who left town because they can’t afford to stay,” he said. “And the ones who are living with their parents here? It’s not by choice. It’s financially… you can’t do it right now.”

While the numbers are stark locally, Stottlemyre emphasized that Inyo County is not alone. The decline in owner-occupied housing mirrors a statewide trend across California, where homeowner exemptions have fallen steadily for years for a variety of economic and demographic reasons.

But for now, the data raises more questions than answers.