Summit County Colorado real estate market conditions
“How is the Summit County real estate market?” is the most asked question when I meet people today.
Owners, Sellers and Buyers all want to know, as the market has been down for so long in the rest of the country. People have assumed it would be bad in Summit County too, but it hasn’t been until recently. The first six months of the year the number of transactions was down 38% over a year ago, so we know the national economy is now affecting us.
Fear on the part of potential Buyers is the biggest cause of the downturn, in my opinion. We still have very few foreclosures and not many Sellers “must” sell their properties. Second home Sellers are notoriously unmotivated and often will not reduce their prices by very much or accept low offers. They don’t feel the pressure to sell and are willing to wait until the market improves.
The downturn has affected some areas worse than others. Copper Mountain real estate sales are down by almost 51%.
The area that has been affected the least is Wildernest/ Silverthorne, down by 32%. Dillon real estate is off by 49%. Breckenridge real estate closings are down by 36%, while Keystone is off 37%. Frisco real estate sales are the same as the average in the county, being down by 38%.
I have not yet seen prices decrease, but numerous price reductions have been showing up in our MLS. Mostly they are reductions on properties that were too high to start out with, and people are beginning to realize that pricing close to the last sale of a similar unit is where it needs to be. The time of adding on 10-15% is over for a while. If you look at a graph of real estate sales in Summit County over the last 15 or 20 years, you will see times when prices flatten and level out, but most of the time they are going up. I have a chart of the sales for last ten years, both for Summit County real estate as a whole, and for Copper Mountain real estate.
Summit County will always be a vacation home destination for skiers and people looking for fun in the summertime. It is a good time to take advantage of the leveling off of prices and get your piece of the pie. Buyers, take advantage of it and quit sitting on your wallet. Sellers, if you want to sell your property, price appropriately and it will get sold.
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