Summit County & Breckenridge Real Estate Market Conditions - 2008 Review

2008 Summit County, Colorado Year-End Statistics & Market Conditions

Also see “Keeping an Eye on 2009″

Average Price of a Residential Property in Summit County Real Estate - 21 Year History

$ volume sold thru Sept. 2008 : $824,000,000 – ↓ 30%
4th Quarter $ volume : $237,287,900 – ↓ 46%
Total # of 2008 of transactions : 1,834 – ↓ 43%
Ave. price for a residential unit : $582,545 – ↑ 10.2%

Despite near record snows last year, 2008 proved itself as the end of an era for Summit County and Breckenridge real estate.  After 4 years of impressive property appreciation, a noticeable, but not unexpected, slide in demand began in Feb. 2008. The national lending crisis began in November ‘07 and by February ‘08, the effects started taking hold with a clear decline in buying patterns in Breckenridge real estate.  Despite many terminated transactions haunted by countless new lending challenges, Summit County’s real estate markets showed great signs of resilience as sales continued throughout the year.  Through September, the average number of sales was down 37% from 2007, which sounds impressive, but 2007 was at near record high transaction figures.  The Summit County dollar volume through September was just shy of $828 million sold (down 30%) whereas fourth quarter sales were down 46%.  Clearly a declining market, but new listing prices remained somewhat unaffected and sold prices were still appreciating until…

October 2008…

Annual Summit County Dollar Volume Sold - 21 Year History of Summit County Real Estate

In the first week of October 2008, our nation’s stock market had its most significant drop in decades.  This event abruptly began the current real estate market conditions in Breckenridge and Summit County.  For our local real estate markets, this was, and is, the most significant change-causing event in Summit County real estate since Vail Resorts purchased Breckenridge, Keystone, and A Basin ski resorts in 1998.  The economic situation is complicated on the macro scale, but to put the affect of the national economy in localized terms relevant to the Breckenridge real estate market:  Thousands of potential buyers interested in second homes just lost a huge chunk of their net worth.  The potential Summit County investor thinking about investing their extra $400,000 on a ski condo no longer has the ability or interest.  This will undoubtedly play a part in Breckenridge’s real estate market until the stock markets and economy improves.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 1:44 pm and is filed under 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.