Real estate in Summit County might be off a bit in May

May 23, 2011 | No Responses

May is beginning to look as if we might have a hiccup in our upward trend line of year-to-date  real estate sales in Summit County, Colorado.    As of today, May 23rd, only 50 sales have closed so far, and we have 89 to do to equal the statistics for May, 2010. While a higher proportion of sales close at the end of the month,  doing  almost as many in the next week as we did in the last three weeks might be unlikley.  Any decrease will probably  be in the 10-15% range, and it will take our year-to-date increase from 22% to about 14 or 15%, still a good number. 

The weather, with frequent snow all month, did not help, as it probably kept people out of the county.  Those that were here, were skiing at Arapahoe Basin, where  they have had huge crowds.

 The sales figures to match or beat for the next couple of months are 89  in June but only 57 in July.  Last year in early summer, there was talk of a possible double dip in the recession which is what probably impacted the sales closed in July.  Looking at the statistics for the closed sales so far this month, the average list to sales price ratio averaged 92.5%.  For a property with a $500,000 list price, that means that it would have sold for $462,500, a pretty good reduction in price.   The range of sales was all the way from 100% of list price to only 75%. 

Inventory numbers are moving up, which is typical for this time of year.  April May and June are the listing season months, and more sales close in September, October and November than any other month.  Our inventory numbers cycle with the seasons as unsold properties come off the market in winter to generate rental income, and come back on the market in the spring.  We still are below last year’s inventory numbers by about 200 units, which is a good thing.  The combination of fewer properties to sell and more Buyers in the market will help to stabilize prices.