Laramie apartment demand rests on two pillars: the University of Wyoming, which brings thousands of students and staff to a city of about 32,000, and a stable base of hospital, school district and government jobs. Together they make Laramie a majority-renter city, with 55.9% of occupied homes rented, according to the Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey.
That combination produces a rental market where demand is concentrated, seasonal in its turnover, and tied to decisions made by one large institution. For owners and investors, the useful question is not whether people need housing in Laramie, but which renters, in what unit types, and how sensitive each group is to changes at the university.
Laramie by the numbers
The Census Bureau QuickFacts profile for Laramie puts the city’s July 1, 2025 population estimate at 32,284, up from 31,407 at the 2020 Census. That is modest growth, roughly 2.8% over five years, but it comes on top of a housing stock that was already heavily rented.
Albany County, where Laramie is the county seat, had an estimated 38,558 residents in 2025, up from 37,066 in 2020. Laramie holds about 84% of the county’s population, so for practical purposes the county rental market is the Laramie rental market. The county counted 19,198 housing units in 2025.
Several Census measures, all from the 2020–2024 five-year American Community Survey, describe the renter base:
- Renter share: 55.9% of Laramie’s occupied housing units are renter-occupied, about 8,126 households. Countywide the split is exactly 50%.
- Median gross rent: $925 in Laramie and $931 in Albany County.
- Median household income: $55,613 in the city and $61,917 in the county, in 2024 dollars.
- Median age: 26.9 in Laramie, compared with 28.6 for the county.
- Rent burden: 43.8% of Laramie renter households spend 35% or more of income on rent.
- Rental vacancy: 4.0%.
A young median age, a majority-renter tenure split and a low vacancy rate point the same direction. Laramie has more people who need to rent than it has rental units to spare, and a large share of those renters are stretching to pay what they pay now. Five-year survey averages lag current asking rents, so these figures describe the structure of the market more than this year’s lease-up pricing.
The University of Wyoming as the anchor renter source
No discussion of Laramie apartment demand can skip UW. The city’s FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report lists the university as Albany County’s largest employer, with 7,023 employees, or 18.35% of county employment. The same report notes that Laramie’s schools bring “an additional temporary population of just over 10,000 annually.”
Enrollment is not a one-way trend
Owners should look at the enrollment numbers carefully rather than assume steady growth. UW’s fall 2026 headcount, measured on the 15th day of classes, was 10,630, down from 10,819 in fall 2025, a decline of about 1.7%. On-campus enrollment in Laramie fell 2.2%, as Wyoming Public Media reported on UW’s fall 2026 figures.
The composition of that number matters more than the total. Incoming classes grew: new first-time students rose 4.7%, from 1,444 to 1,512, and new transfer students rose 6%, from 772 to 818. Out-of-state first-time students jumped 19.9%, from 517 to 620, while in-state first-time students fell 3.8%. In other words, the university lost headcount among continuing students while bringing in larger, more geographically diverse freshman and transfer classes.
Why freshman growth does not translate directly into apartment demand
UW requires newly admitted students to live in the residence halls for their first academic year, according to UW’s residence hall housing requirements. That means a bigger freshman class fills dorm beds first. The off-campus apartment market feels it a year later, when those students become sophomores and many move into shared apartments and rental houses.
The flip side is that the transfer bump, up 6%, tends to show up in the private rental market immediately, since transfer students are not first-year admits. Graduate students and visiting researchers are also largely off-campus renters.
New residence halls change the on-campus supply
UW has been adding beds. North Hall, with 410 beds, opened on August 15, 2025, alongside a new dining center, and a second building, South Hall, with 542 beds, was scheduled to follow in spring 2026, for a combined 952 beds. UW put the cost of the housing and dining project at $285.5 million in its announcement of the new North Hall and Dining Center.
Owners should watch two things that public sources have not yet settled: whether South Hall opened on schedule, and whether older residence halls are taken offline as the new ones come on. Net new beds, rather than gross new beds, are what affect off-campus demand. If the new halls mainly replace aging dorms, the effect on private apartments is small. If they add capacity, some upper-class students who might have rented off campus may choose to stay.
Employers beyond the university
The steadiest part of Laramie apartment demand comes from households that are not on an academic calendar. The city’s FY2025 financial report lists the largest employers in Albany County after UW:
- Albany County School District #1: 1,026 employees
- Ivinson Memorial Hospital: 650
- City of Laramie: 498
- Walmart: 378
- WyoTech: 238
- Premier Bone & Joint: 181
- Albany County: 169
- Ark Regional Services: 155
- Trihydro: 150
Teachers, nurses, technicians and municipal workers tend to sign 12-month leases and renew, which reduces turnover cost compared with student units. WyoTech, a technical school, adds another student-type renter group with its own calendar. For an apartment owner, a building that draws a blend of these renters alongside graduate students usually experiences less summer vacancy than one that relies entirely on undergraduates.
How tight is the supply side?
The most comprehensive recent look at housing need is Wyoming’s 2024 Statewide Housing Needs Assessment, published by the Wyoming Community Development Authority. For Albany County it estimated a need for 2,504 to 3,721 additional housing units between 2021 and 2030, including 1,203 to 1,787 rental units.
The same assessment reported multifamily vacancy of about 3.0%, a renter cost-burden rate of 57% that it identified as the highest in Wyoming, and a 2023 CoStar median rent of $876 in buildings with five or more units. Those figures use different methods and dates than the Census survey, so they do not match exactly, but they agree on the main point: a low-vacancy market with renters who are already stretched.
For context on scale, the low end of the projected rental need, about 1,200 units, is equal to roughly 14% of the 8,537 renter households Albany County has today. Even if new private projects and UW’s residence halls absorb part of that, the gap is large relative to the existing stock.
Rent benchmarks owners can use
Because Census rent figures lag, many owners use HUD’s Fair Market Rents as a second reference point, particularly for units that may house Housing Choice Voucher tenants. Albany County is a non-metropolitan area in HUD’s system.
FY2026 Fair Market Rents, Albany County
- Studio: $709
- One bedroom: $786
- Two bedroom: $963
- Three bedroom: $1,339
- Four bedroom: $1,615
FY2027 Fair Market Rents, effective October 1, 2026
- Studio: $730
- One bedroom: $806
- Two bedroom: $999
- Three bedroom: $1,383
- Four bedroom: $1,670
HUD’s calculated two-bedroom figure for FY2027 was $973, which was raised to $999 because that is the Wyoming state minimum, according to HUD’s FY2027 Fair Market Rent summary for Albany County. In practice, that means the FMR floor, not local rent data, set the two-bedroom benchmark this year. Owners comparing their rent roll to FMRs should keep that adjustment in mind.
Reconciling the different rent figures
Owners researching Laramie quickly run into several rent numbers that do not match, and each answers a different question.
- $925 (Census, 2020–2024 median gross rent for Laramie). This covers every renter-occupied unit in the city, including rented houses, duplexes and mobile homes, and it includes utilities the tenant pays. It is a five-year average, so it trails the current market.
- $876 (CoStar 2023 median rent in buildings of five or more units, as cited by the state housing assessment). This isolates the apartment segment, which is the most relevant figure for a multifamily owner, but it is a single-year snapshot from 2023.
- $963 and $999 (HUD two-bedroom Fair Market Rent for FY2026 and FY2027). These are gross rent standards for the voucher program, and the FY2027 two-bedroom figure was lifted to Wyoming’s state minimum.
The apartment-only figure sitting below the all-units median is worth noting. One plausible reading is that Laramie’s apartment buildings skew toward smaller and older units than its rented houses, which often carry three or more bedrooms and attract groups of students. Whatever the cause, it means an owner benchmarking a 20-unit building against the citywide Census median may overestimate what the building’s units can command. The better comparison is the building’s own trailing rent roll alongside recent leases at similar buildings nearby.
Affordability and how much room rents have to move
The affordability numbers are the most important constraint on Laramie apartment demand turning into higher rents. Using the common guideline that housing should cost no more than 30% of income, a household earning Laramie’s median income of $55,613 could afford about $1,390 a month in gross rent. That looks like comfortable headroom above a $925 median rent, but the citywide median income includes homeowners, who generally earn more than renters, and the student population pulls renter incomes lower still.
The Census data capture that pressure directly: 43.8% of Laramie renter households already spend 35% or more of their income on rent. The state’s housing assessment reported a 57% cost-burden rate for Albany County renters, the highest it found anywhere in Wyoming. When that many renters are already stretched, large renewal increases tend to show up as higher turnover, more roommates per unit, or tenants moving to older and cheaper buildings rather than as clean gains in rent.
For owners, the practical implication is that value in Laramie is usually protected through occupancy, expense control and steady, moderate rent adjustments rather than through rapid rent growth. Buildings that offer predictable utility costs and solid maintenance tend to keep the non-student renters who stabilize income across the year.
Lease cycles and turnover in a university town
The biggest operational difference between Laramie and a non-university city of the same size is the shape of the leasing year. Student-oriented units tend to turn in late spring and re-lease for the fall semester, which concentrates vacancy, cleaning and make-ready work into a narrow window. Units leased to hospital staff, school district employees and city workers turn on their own schedules throughout the year.
Wyoming’s landlord-tenant statute shapes how that turnover is handled. Under Wyo. Stat. 1-21-1203, owners must keep units “reasonably safe, sanitary and fit.” Under the Wyoming security deposit statute, W.S. 1-21-1208, deposits, along with an itemized list of any deductions, must be returned within 30 days after the lease ends or within 15 days after the landlord receives the tenant’s new mailing address, whichever is later, with an additional 30 days allowed when there is damage. When dozens of student leases end in the same few weeks, those deadlines stack up, and buildings with organized move-out inspections handle them far more smoothly.
What Laramie apartment demand means for owners
Pulling the data together, a few practical conclusions follow:
- Demand is real but not automatic. A 55.9% renter share and 4.0% rental vacancy indicate a tight market, but UW enrollment fell in fall 2026, so owners should not assume enrollment-driven growth.
- Watch the class composition, not just the headcount. Larger freshman classes arrive in the dorms first and reach the apartment market a year later; transfers and graduate students rent immediately.
- Net residence hall capacity is the key unknown. North Hall’s 410 beds and the planned 542-bed South Hall will affect upper-class demand differently depending on whether older halls close.
- Non-student renters stabilize occupancy. Buildings with a mix of school district, hospital and city employees typically see less seasonal vacancy than all-student properties.
- Benchmark against apartment rents, not citywide medians. The 2023 CoStar median for buildings with five or more units was below the all-units Census median.
- Affordability limits rent growth. With 43.8% of renters paying 35% or more of income on rent, and HUD’s two-bedroom FMR sitting at the state floor, there is limited room for aggressive increases.
For owners evaluating whether a building’s income can support its value, an honest rent roll and expense history matter more than any single market statistic. Investors who want to understand how passive ownership structures work in markets like this can start with our overview of passive multifamily investing. For local context, our Laramie market page summarizes the city, and the Wyoming market overview covers the rest of the state.
