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Good day readers,
Things may not be going so well in metro real estate markets like Denver, but up here in the mountain resort communities properties are SELLING. In Crested Butte, real estate activity is strong, especially at the $1MM and up price range. Today, a vacant lot in CBMR’s new Prospect subdivision sold for $ 2MM. Across the mountains, we are seeing total sales volume rise while the number of transactions slips a bit.
Additionally, mortgage rates have dropped dramatically since June. Today’s 30 year fixed mortgages are selling for 6.25%! Hopefully, folks with risky ARM mortgages will wake up and refinance soon.
Read the two articles I borrowed below. Thanks for visiting today.
Channing Boucher
Daily Real Estate News | September 26, 2006
While Denver and other Colorado cities have among the highest foreclosure rates in the country, you don’t have to go far to find areas of the state where real estate sales are still setting records.
Pitkin County — home of Aspen and Snowmass — saw home sales grow by 21 percent through July, according to Bob Starodoj, president of Mason & Morse Real Estate. That follows on the heels of last year’s record-setting $2.2 billion in sales of residential real estate.
In Vail, a 5,403-square-foot townhome in the Lodge at Vail Chalets, a Vail Resorts Inc. development, recently sold for $15.95 million, or nearly $3,000 a square foot.
Eagle County — home to Vail and Beaver Creek — saw a 2 percent growth in total dollar sales through July, to $1.46 billion, although the number of real estate transactions declined 19.7 percent, according to the Land Title Guarantee Co.
In San Miguel County — home to the Telluride ski resort — sales through August were up 7 percent from last year, to $493.1 million, while the number of transactions dropped 13 percent, according to Telluride Consulting.
The average price of homes sold is also on the rise. In Eagle County, the average sales price through July was $840,646, up 21 percent from last year, according to Land Title. Pitkin County is averaging $1.28 million so far this year, up 9 percent from last year.
Source: The Denver Post, Julie Dunn (09/24/06)
Reports on the state of the housing market in Colorado and the rest of the Rocky Mountain region have been a little dismal of late.
Colorado is leading the nation in foreclosures – due in large part to the popularity of Interest-only and adjustable rate mortgages in the state.
Earlier this year, the housing market in Denver and Boulder dropped for the first time in 16 years.
Affordable housing is disappearing even downslope from some of the state’s ski resorts, as reported earlier in NewWest.net.
And as developable land becomes more scant, some communities are considering imposing new limits on the size of houses.
But there is a glimmer of good news in one sector of the Centennial state: Million-dollar homes in the state’s resort towns are still selling like hotcakes.
The Denver Post reports today that really high-end homes — those valued at $10 million and above – are still selling well.
A recent sale in Vail broke an all-time record, with a property in the Vail Chalets development selling for $15.85 million – nearly $3,000 a square foot.
In Eagle County – home to Vail and Beaver Creek – even though the total number of sales slipped nearly 20 percent, the total dollar sales amount increased 2 percent – fewer sales but more dollars.
Sales around Telluride followed the same pattern, with total dollars in sales up 2 percent while the number of transactions fell nearly 13 percent.
Realtors in the area said nearly half the homes sold in Summit County were bought by baby-boomers from the Front Range purchasing a second home. And the Realtors said they believed the trend would continue for another 15 years.