Hello! Are you planning a summer vacation? I’ve been thwarted by high gas prices and spiking airfares, which took a bite out of the credit card points I stacked up all year long.

In today’s newsletter, we’ll learn about would-be vacationers giving their backyard a fresh look. We’ll also look at why it’s so hard to buy a house in Las Vegas, and share a few interesting stories to read between watching World Cup matches. Read to the end, as always, for our song of the week.  — Tony Wagner, newsletter editor

P.S. Marketplace’s fiscal year ends next week, and we need your support to finish strong and keep great business journalism free for all in 2027. Any amount makes you a Marketplace Investor, so I hope you’ll consider making a donation today.

Travelers facing tighter budgets have always been a good thing for tourism in relatively affordable Ashtabula County, Ohio.

“This isn't the first time that we've seen a little bit of a downturn in the economy,” said Stephanie Siegel, executive director of the Ashtabula County, Ohio Visitors Bureau. “Whenever we've seen this historically, our area does incredibly well.”

Many Americans — who feel pinched by stubborn inflation, sluggish wage growth, and high gas prices — have been opting for vacations that don’t involve burning quite as much gas, or cash, as usual.

Tourists from Detroit, Columbus, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh can get to Ashtabula County in three-and-a-half hours or less. They come because it’s home to Ohio’s wine country (7th largest in the nation), it’s got lakefront beaches and beach towns, and the county boasts a whopping 19 covered bridges.

When times get tough, “people start to be a little bit more creative and don't just naturally jump on a plane and leave the state or leave the country,” Siegel said. “They start to look a little inward at what's around them.”

Congress passed a landmark bipartisan bill this week aimed at making housing more affordable by, among other things, making it easier to build more homes. President Donald Trump has, as of this writing, withheld his signature as he tries to push through an unrelated voter ID law.

One provision that’s gotten a lot of attention, including from the president, is placing limits on how many single-family homes companies and institutional investors can purchase.

The idea is to prevent deep-pocketed investors with all-cash offers from competing with regular buyers. Those investors argue they are not the problem. So who’s right?

To answer that question, I headed to Las Vegas — a city with a disproportionately high rate of institutional purchases. There, I went on a ride-along with Congresswoman Dina Titus, whose district stretches from the glitzy casinos in the heart of town to suburbs in the north and south.

“Well, this is a nice, fairly new middle-class neighborhood in Henderson, and I'm sure it's all single-family,” she said.

We’re looking out at rows and rows of stucco homes, often one or two stories with tile roofs. All were built at once as one development.

There are many neighborhoods just like this around Vegas. And in some, a quarter of all homes are investor-owned, according to analysis by the University of Nevada.

Titus, who supports some limits on investor purchases, said companies often crowd out potential homeowners. “All the numbers show that having a house is the key to building wealth,” she said. “So if you can't find one to buy, you have to rent. That's not building your own personal wealth.”

Property taxes typically go to towns and counties for public services, like fire departments, libraries, ambulances and roads. They’re just one of those things homeowners have to pay — or at least that is how it has always been.

At least 18 states are looking at reducing or even eliminating property taxes. Wyoming has already reduced its residential property tax and public services are on the chopping block.

To understand where this started, we have to rewind to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many places, home values skyrocketed in Wyoming’s little mountain towns.

“People were coming in from out of state, and they were paying cash offers, they were paying over asking price, and so that just made the market go up,” said Hank Hoversland, executive director of the Wyoming Taxpayers Association.

With home values up, property taxes followed. Hoversland said that meant longtime Wyoming homeowners were suddenly paying a lot more. State lawmakers responded by lowering residential property taxes last year by 25%. It saved a Wyoming homeowner a few hundred bucks, but cost towns and counties tens of millions in revenue.

“There really isn't a plan to make up these revenues. And so it's going to come on the backs of spending cuts,” Hoversland said.

Like the library in the small town of Lander, Wyoming, where Anita Marple is the director. On the day I speak with her, she is wearing a Dr. Seuss T-Shirt that says, “Oh the places you’ll go when you … read.”

“Sometimes I just wear this shirt to remind me of, OK, here's our mission,” Marple said.

Lately, Marple is spending much of her time going over a difficult budget. Because these days, the library’s doors are locked and the lights are out more often.

“You're here on a Monday morning and we're closed until 1 p.m.,” she said.

Two of the best stories I read this week were about garage sales, weirdly. It’s like a BOGO.

First, Ava White at Alaska Public Media told us how her state’s short summer makes for a highly concentrated garage sale season, where neighborhood-wide events bring shoppers from miles around. The lower 48 can get on the multi-family fun too: Each August, homes along U.S. Route 127 hold a massive sale that spans Alabama to Michigan.

Also, The Atlantic’s Caity Weaver chronicled how she spent $100 secondhand shopping at garage sales, thrift stores and estate sales. The journey is much funnier than it sounds, and more enlightening too — it turns out pawing through other peoples’ stuff can teach us a lot about American history and ourselves. Here’s a gift link to read for yourself. What a deal!