Open any portal and Hailey looks like the value play. Zillow puts the typical Hailey home at $780,999 as of mid-2026, down 1.0% year over year, against a Ketchum figure closer to $1.26 million. That $480,000 gap is the story most out-of-valley buyers arrive with, and it's usually filed under "resort premium."
The gap is real. The interpretation is stale. The economic base of Blaine County has quietly rotated south of the airport, and the price signal hasn't caught up.
The number that reframes the map
The Idaho Department of Labor data compiled by Sun Valley Economic Development for the Idaho Mountain Express's annual Economic Almanac is the finding worth sitting with. In 2024, Hailey-based businesses outnumbered Ketchum-based businesses for the first time, 833 to 812, with Hailey growing at 6.4% year over year versus Ketchum's 3.6%. Wages paid by Hailey businesses reached $337 million against Ketchum's $301 million, a gap that has widened every year since 2022. Ketchum lost jobs between 2023 and 2024. Hailey has added them every year since 2020.
| 2024 metric | Hailey | Ketchum |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses based in town | 833 | 812 |
| YoY business growth | 6.4% | 3.6% |
| Total wages paid | $337M | $301M |
| Direction of job count, 2023–2024 | Up | Down |
| Typical home value (2026 ZHVI) | ~$781K | ~$1.26M |
A buyer looking at that table is looking at a market where the town with more businesses, more wages, and more job growth trades at roughly 62 cents on the Ketchum dollar. That is not what a resort premium is supposed to look like.
Where the assessed values disagree with the portal
Here is the honest counterweight. When Blaine County assessor Jim Williams released 2025 assessment figures based on 2024 activity, total taxable value countywide hit $25.8 billion, up 13.47% year over year. But the growth was not evenly distributed. Sun Valley's total assessed value rose 17.61%, Ketchum's 13.84%, unincorporated Blaine 14.72%, and Hailey's just 2.52%.
Read that carefully. The assessor is telling you that on the tax rolls, Hailey is the coolest corner of the county right now. The Economic Almanac is telling you the business base is the warmest. Both are true. The interesting question is which of the two is the leading indicator and which is the lag.
What Hailey is actually building right now
The case that assessments are lagging rather than diverging rests on what's currently in the Hailey Planning and Zoning pipeline. The city is not sitting still.
- Bullion Street Promenade. The architect leading the project told the Idaho Mountain Express in May 2026 that phase one, from Main Street outward, is moving forward. This is the physical spine of the Downtown Master Plan the city adopted with input from 388 residents and 98 businesses.
- Zions Bank Main Street rebuild. In June 2026, Zions Bank went to Hailey P&Z seeking approval to demolish an existing Main Street building and construct a new one. Institutional capital does not commit to a downtown it thinks is topped out.
- Wood River Land Trust and LEAP Housing. The Land Trust partnered with LEAP to build deed-restricted local workforce housing on a 15-acre riverfront parcel between Bullion Street and Bow Bridge, with annexation into Hailey pending. Workforce housing that actually gets built is the difference between a service-economy town that hollows out and one that compounds.
- Sunbeam. Hailey's newest subdivision brings fiber-to-the-home from two providers, a nine-acre park (the largest inside city limits), and status as the first National Green Building Standards Emerald-certified community in Idaho.
- Airport West mixed-use. The commission approved a twelve-unit condominium project in February 2026, each unit at 2,293 square feet, on a parcel previously used as storage. That is a supply story on the south end of town.
- Revised ADU ordinance. In late May 2026, P&Z voted 3-1 to recommend loosening the accessory dwelling unit rules. More legal density inside existing lot lines is a slow-moving but durable form of appreciation.
"Our valley has been like a trickle-down economics place where everything happens up there and trickles down here," Mike McKenna, executive director of the Chamber of Hailey and the Wood River Valley, told the Express. "I think you're going to start to see much more trickle up."
McKenna is a chamber director talking his book. The Department of Labor data suggests he is also right.
Why the pressure is coming from the north
The mechanism behind the rotation is not that Hailey is beating Ketchum on its own merits alone. Ketchum is contributing. Commercial real estate broker Matt Gelso and others in the Almanac reporting pointed to aging landlords in the Ketchum core selling to new management, which is pushing commercial rents past what independent tenants can support. Ketchum's recently adopted comprehensive plan limits height and intensity in the downtown core, which further constrains commercial supply. If you make commercial space in Ketchum more expensive and scarcer, businesses that would have opened there open in Hailey instead. The wages follow. The jobs follow. Eventually the buyers of the homes that house those workers follow too.
What this reframes when you actually write an offer
A mid-funnel reader is not shopping abstractions. Three specifics matter once you cross from analysis into a transaction.
First, the days-on-market picture in Hailey is not one number. As of July 19, 2026, the local MLS shows 57 active listings with an average of 56 days on market at $534 per square foot and a median list of $785,000. That average masks a barbell. Well-priced homes in the $700K to $1.3M band move quickly. The county assessor's office pointed to a Hailey home listed at $1.3 million that drew about 50 people to its open house and four full-price offers, while high-end properties turn over more slowly. If you are shopping the middle of the market, plan to move at Ketchum speed on Hailey inventory.
Second, the buyer-broker rules changed in a way that matters more in Hailey than it does in resort transactions where cash and sophistication are the norm. Buyers now must sign a written agreement with a broker before touring any property in Hailey, Ketchum, or Sun Valley, and buyer-broker compensation is no longer published inside the MLS. For a Hailey seller weighing whether to offer buyer-agent compensation, that decision is now a marketing lever rather than a default. Get it wrong and you lose the pool of buyers whose agents are working under fixed-fee agreements.
Third, watch the assessment cycle. Blaine County assessment notices arrive in mid-June each year, and the appeal deadline runs to late June. If Hailey's fundamentals do pull assessed values into line with Ketchum's rate of growth over the next two cycles, tax bills on homes bought at today's list prices will move. That is not a reason to avoid Hailey. It is a reason to model it into a five-year hold, not assume the 2.52% assessment growth line continues in perpetuity.
Reading the discount honestly
None of this is a forecast. Hailey's own assessed-value growth trailed the rest of the county last cycle, and Zillow's ZHVI is down 1.0% year over year. A buyer counting on immediate appreciation is reading the wrong chart. What the data supports is narrower and more useful: the assumption that Ketchum's price premium reflects a permanent gap in economic gravity is no longer the assumption a careful buyer should make. The gravity moved. The prices haven't yet.
A short FAQ
If Hailey is the business engine, why is Zillow's ZHVI still negative year over year? Home price indexes move on transaction mix and mortgage rates. Business formation and wage growth move on local conditions. It is common for one to lead the other by several quarters. The 2.52% assessment figure and the negative ZHVI describe the same lag from different angles.
Does the "trickle-up" thesis apply to second-home buyers or only primary residents? It applies unevenly. The economic case for Hailey is strongest for buyers who care about year-round services, workforce housing stability, and the health of the local business base. A lock-and-leave second-home buyer whose only use case is ski access will still weight Ketchum and Sun Valley more heavily, and that is rational.
How should the new buyer-broker rules change what I do first? Have the compensation conversation before you tour, not after you find the house. Agreements can bind for anywhere from a single day to six months, and the fee source is now negotiated up front rather than assumed from the MLS.
If you want the Hailey read specific to a street, a subdivision, or the particular corner of the market you are shopping, Wood River Properties is set up for exactly that kind of conversation. Contact us and we'll walk the numbers with you.
