Summit County & Breckenridge Real Estate Market Update - 1st Quarter Report

It’s a good time to be a buyer in Breckenridge Real Estate!

It’s still hard to get used to, but the Summit County & Breckenridge real estate market is officially soft.  Local attractions for investors (like a great town, great skiing, & diminishing vacant land) are still in place, but listings are stacking up. Along with lending challenges, the national economy is in control of our market now.  So far, the number of transactions for all types of real estate in Summit County is down an astonishing 61.4% over 2008 1st quarter.  Overall, prices have not dropped much for most properties.  Depending on seller’s motivation, we’ve seen 4%-20% price reductions from last year’s typical sale.  The larger reductions have mostly been for real estate over $1,000,000.

Properties are moving of course, but most are undervalued properties.  The graph shown here from the Summit Association of Realtors shows monthly Single Family sales from March ’08 - March ’09.  It is a fabulous example of what I’ve been telling people nearly every day: “The market was alright until the stock market crashed in October”. There have been a handful of wise investors have taking advantage of the buyer’s market situation so far, but they too have been coming in smaller numbers recently.

The following statistics from the Summit County MLS should provide a good picture of what is happening in the Summit County and Breckenridge real estate markets.  The stats shown below are for all Residential Real Estate listed and sold in 2009.

• Residential properties sold in 2008 - 311
• Residential properties sold in 2009 - 111
• % change for the 1st quarter (-64.3%)
• 61 sold under $500,000
• 35 sold from $500K-$1 million
• 9 sold from $1-$1.5 million
• 3 sold at $1.5 - $1.8 mil (1 in my office)
• 1 sold at $3.1 mil (cash sale)
• 30 (27%) were cash purchases

Real estate over $1 million sold at an average of 89% on list price.
High - 100% (new const.)    Low - 82%.  Most were under 90%

Real estate under $1 million sold at an average of 94% on list price.
High - 100%.    Low - 87.5% (the only sale below 90%).

Weakest Niche Markets in Summit County Real Estate:
1.    Homes and condos from the $1.2 - $2.2 million.
2.    The Highlands Subdivision
3.    Studio & 1 bedroom condos
4.    Keystone condos

Strongest Niche Markets in Summit County Real Estate:
1.    2 bedroom condos in Breckenridge
2.    ski-in / ski-out under $900,000 anywhere.
3.    anything with a big price reduction
4.    The $300K-$450K price range.

The first few weeks of Spring brought two things we’ve been looking forward to in Breckenridge: positive change and snow.  Five weeks without snow closely resembled the infrequency of real estate transactions in Feb. & March, but Spring Breakers showed an increase in sales activity and the brokers in town all noticed a spike in business as well. .

Also in mid-March, the Feds made big moves to stimulate the economy by buying the mortgage-backed securities, thus lowering interest rates under 5% for qualified buyers.  These rates are expected to stay low for a while, but only time will tell.  Low rates will undoubtedly spark investor interest around the country and for the Summit County and Breckenridge real estate markets. Local real estate sales should feel the benefits from this stimulus in the coming months, but the overall national picture is still grim.  Full recovery will take some time still.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Archives, Community News, Market News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.