April Summit County Real Estate Has Strongest Gains This Year

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Eric Buck

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April real estate sales in Summit County posted the strongest year over year gains in both transactions and dollars thus far in 2015. Transaction volume, at 153 sales, was up 31% besting the 26% gains seen for the first three months. The gains in dollar volume were even more impressive with total sales for the month reaching $92.4 million. That represented a 55% increase over the prior year and was considerably ahead of the 30% gain seen in the first quarter. The dollar total was the highest April sum in the last eight years.
For the year-to-date, transaction volume is up 27% to 535 sales and dollar volume has risen 37% to $292.3 million.
The lowest end of the market—under $300,000—lagged the gains made in the mid market range. Sales under $300,000 represented only 24.8% of the transaction volume in the month versus 33.6% in the prior three months. Sales between $300,000 and $700,000 however accounted for 54.4% of the volume up from 33.2% January—March. Sales over $1 million were modestly ahead representing 12% of the total versus 9.4% in the previous three months. April also saw a sale of over $3 million, the second such sale this year. In 2014, there were only 4 sales over $3 million for the entire year.
Not surprisingly given the prior statistics, year–to-date average selling prices for a single family home rose to $873,006 versus $851,420 at the end of March. That mark is 11% ahead of the year end 2014 figure of $784,779. Multifamily pricing was fairly stable versus the prior month at $389,545 but it too is up 9% from the 2014 total.
While mix certainly plays a role in determining the average selling price it would appear that people aren’t just buying bigger houses, they are paying higher prices as well. For example, in 2014, the average Breckenridge property sold at $407 a square foot. In April of this year, that number had reached $489. Other areas have seen more modest gains but nearly all markets (Silverthorne being the exception) have seen that number rise.

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Summit County real estate sales just keep on coming.

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Eric Buck

March extended the string of double digit Summit County real estate sales gains to five months running. Transactions in the month rose 25% year-over-year to 149 and were up 41% from the month of February.
The gains in dollars sales were even more impressive rising 37 % over a year ago to $83.1 million. Sales in February, while posting a strong gain over the prior year were only $50.3 million.
Year to date, transaction volume is up 26% to 382 sales. Dollar volume is up an even more impressive 30% to $199.9 million.
Sales in March were particularly strong at two price points. First, sales in $200,000 to $300,000 price range jumped to 25 versus half that many in February. Sales in the $1-$1.5 million range also saw a large increase from two in February to eight in March. We also saw 4 sales in the $1.5 to $2 million range and our first sale of the year over $3 million.
Given that strength at the high end of the market, it is not surprising that the average selling prices (ASPs) turned upward in the month as well. The ASP of a single family home year to date rose to $851,421 from $817,736 at the end of February. Single family ASPs were up 8% from the 2014 year end figure of $784,779.
With the large bump in volume in the $200,000-$300,000 range, which typically represent multi-family units, the year to date ASPs for multi-family sales dropped to $391,781 from $409,886 last month. They still are 7% above the average for all of last year. Vacant land pricing stayed relatively flat at $374,447.
While the strength in sales is certainly news, the big story is the level of inventories. Both single family and multi-family inventories are at or near 10 year lows. With sales expanding and inventories down, prices are likely to be on the rise this summer.
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The Summit County market is hot – but uneven

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Eric Buck

February is typically one of the weaker months of the year for Summit County real estate sales and this year saw the normal seasonal drop. Sales in the month totaled $50.3 million dollars down 24% from $66.5 million in January. Transaction volume saw a more modest decline but was still down 17% from 127 sales to 106.
Despite those declines from January, the month was actually very strong on a year over year basis. Dollar volume was up 25% from a year ago and transaction volume was up 28%. That makes it the second month in a row in which sales have increased in excess of 20%. For the year to date both sales and transaction volumes are up 26%. Last year at this time those numbers were actually showing declines and full year 2014 gains were only 8% and 7% respectively.
Average selling prices (ASPs) also declined from the elevated January levels. ASPs for single family homes year to date is now $817,736 down from $891,931 the prior month but that still represents a .5% gain over a year ago. Multi-family housing ASPs dropped modestly from January but at $409,886 were up 18% from a year ago. Interestingly the strong market is not distributed evenly across the county. So far this year, Breckenridge has accounted for 38% of the transactions and 52% of the dollar volume up from 34% and 40% respectively last year. Pricing also seems to be strong in the Breckenridge market with the average price per square foot running at $492 versus $414 last year. Keystone also had a solid increase rising from $267 to $310. In contrast Frisco has gone from $312 to $300 while Silverthorne has dropped from $251 to $233.
Being this early in the year the small sample size can make these ASP numbers quite volatile and highly dependent of the mix of high-end versus low end sales and in the case of square footage calculations the mix of single family versus multi-family properties. In general, the price per square foot tends to decline as the size increases so multi-family properties typically have higher square footage prices. As an example, for the first two months of this year the average square footage price for Breckenridge single family homes was $354. For multi-family properties that average was $506. By the way, the high for the period was $1,208.

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Summit County real estate off to strong start in 2015

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Eric Buck

Summit County real estate got off to a strong start in January showing double digit gains in both transaction and dollar volumes. Dollar sales increased 28 percent to $66.5 million, the strongest January dollar volume since 2008. Transaction volume increased 25% to 127 sales, a January high that has not been surpassed since 2007.
As strong as these sales were on a year over year basis, they did reflect a continuation of the typical seasonal slide we see at this time of the year. Dollar sales have been down each month since they peaked in September last year. January was down 16 percent from December and 47 percent from the September high of $126.3 million.
Average selling prices were up substantially in all property categories versus both a year ago and the full12months of 2013. The average selling price (ASP) of single family homes rose to $891,931 versus $784,779 for all of last year. That number was heavily influenced by 2 sales in the $2.5-$3.0 million range. There were only 7 such sales in all of 2013. Multi-family ASPs rose to $419,224 versus $357,612 for 2013 and the average lot price increased to $434,482 up from $318,230 last year. These prices are likely to fall in the coming months as the sample size gets larger and the mix normalizes but there is little doubt that the pricing trend is on the rise.
What is pushing up the pricing? Certainly the improving economy and soaring stock market are contributors. Another important factor is the shrinking inventory. Last year at this time, there were approximately 554 single family homes listed in the Summit Multilist system.. Currently there are 486. Multifamily units have dropped even more dramatically from 660 units to 423. No doubt inventories will rise as we move into the spring and summer but so will sales activity. In 2013 the average days on the market for sold properties was 258. In 2014 that number fell to 230 and for the last six months of that year was only 206. Six months of sales is normally considered the break point between a buyers and sellers market. We expect to be near that by mid year.

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Multiple offers

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Eric Buck

While we don’t see it often in our market, multiple simultaneous offers do happen and buyers and sellers are sometimes confused on what rules apply when they do.
In such a situation, it’s the seller that calls the shots. First of all, the seller is under no obligation to tell the buyers that multiple offers are in place. In fact, the listing broker is prohibited from disclosing the fact that an offer is in place without the seller’s permission. However, it might be in the interest of the seller to disclose the fact in order to create a competitive bidding situation . The seller also has no obligation to accept either or any of the offers or to give an opportunity for a bidder to improve his offer. Sellers should discuss their multi-offer strategy with their broker at the time of listing.

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November generates strong gains in Summit County real estate.

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Eric Buck

Summit County real estate sales posted strong gains in the month of November even against a strong 2013 month. Transactions for the period increased 19% to 203 while dollar sales were up 16% to $93.3 million. That was on top of gains of 20% and 10% in November of 2013.
For the full year, dollar sales are up 8% to $883.1 million while transaction volume has increased 5% to 1,868 sales.
Interestingly, transaction volume was relatively strong at both the low end and high end of the market while mid market properties represented a lesser percentage of sales than earlier in the year. Properties in the $200,000 to $400,000 range represented 45.1% of all transactions versus 37.5% year-to-date. Sales over $1.5 million were 3.8% of sales versus 2.8% for earlier in the year. Meanwhile sales between the $400,000 and $1.5 million range sagged to 39% of November transactions versus 47.1% for the first 11 months.
Average selling prices for the month showed little change from the prior ten months but continued to post solid gains from the prior year. Year to date single family average sales prices (ASPs) were $783,894, up slightly from $783,532 through October but had a healthy gain of 4.7% from this time a year ago. Multi-family housing dipped slightly from $360,005 in October to $355,997 in November but was up 3.7% from the YTD number for 2013. ASPs for raw land were down about 3% from the October YTD and last year at $321,489.

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Summit County Real Estate sales post modest gains.

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Eric Buck

Summit County real estate sales showed modest gains in both dollars and transactions in the month of October. For the month, transaction volume increased 5% versus a year ago to 252 sales. Dollar sales increased 6% reaching $117.5 million.
Year-to-date, transaction volume is up 4% to 1,665 while dollar volume is up 7% to $789.8 million.
While earlier in the year we had seen strengthening in the higher end of the market, October saw relatively strong transaction volume at the lower end of the market. Sales under $400,000 accounted for 57.1% of all transactions in October, well above the 49.4% of such transactions represented in the first nine months of the year. The market range of $400,000 to $2 million was below the year’s pace accounting for 41.1% of sales versus 49.3 percent through September. In fact every $100,000 price point increment in the $400-$1 million range was down (as a percent of the total) except for the $700,000—$800,000 range which increased to 6.5% of sales versus 4.7% earlier in the year.
There was some improvement in the very high end with three sales in the $2.0-2.5 million range and one in the $2.5 -$ 3.0 million range. This helped the year to date average selling price for single family homes to rise to $783,532 versus $774,644 through September. That price also compares favorably to the $757,052 at this point last year and $751, 240 at year end 2013.
Multi-family average selling prices at $360,005 were essentially flat with the September level but were up 5% from this time a year ago and up 4% from December of 2013.
Overall, per square foot average selling prices in the County are up 4% with nearly all areas of the county participating in the rise.

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August falls short of tough comparisons

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Eric Buck

Nominally, August looked like a rough month for Summit County real estate sales as transaction volume dropped 6% and dollar volume fell 16% from the year ago period. Digging a little deeper, however, shows that it wasn’t this August that was slow but last August that was so unusually strong. A year ago dollar and transaction volume rose 53% and 26% respectively in a year that saw totals increase only in the mid-teens. At $88.8 million, August 2014 sales were still 29% ahead of those of 2012 and were the third highest sales of this year dipping only modestly from the $90.7 million seen in July. Similarly, transaction volume was up 28% from 2002 and at 203 sales was the highest level of activity so far this year.
Year to date, total dollar volume is up about 5% to $546,825 while transaction volume has increased 2% to 1,141 sales.
Year to date, average selling prices (ASPs) for single family homes continued to slip from the beginning of the year hitting $770,747, essentially flat with the $770,858 of a year ago. Multi-family ASPs fared a little better rising 5.7% year-over-year to $362,167. As one might expect, the changes in ASPs are not uniform across the county particularly when one looks as ASPs per square foot. Many areas such as Blue River, Dillon Valley and Farmers Corner have seen healthy rises while some of the more remote such as Peak 7, Summit Cove and the more rural areas are flat to down.
Interestingly, the price point mix would suggest higher ASPs. Last year 54% of all sales were below $400,000 while YTD this year that number was only 49%. Conversely sales over $1 million have represented 3.5% of the transactions versus only 3% of the sales in 2013.

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May bounces back strongly

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Eric Buck

Summit County real estate sales staged a strong recovery in May after an April slump. May dollar volume rose 13% over the 2013 month which itself had been up 18% from 2012. Sequentially, dollar volume rose 53% to $91.6 million. That was the strongest May performance since 2008.
Transaction volume was also up sharply both year-over-year and sequentially. With 174 transactions, volume rose 10% from the year ago period and 48% from April of 2014.
Year-to-date, total transactions are still down 2% at 595 but dollar volume is actually up 6% to $304.4 million.
With transactions down and total dollar volume up, average selling prices (ASPs) would seem to be rising. Indeed, year-to-date, the ASP for single family properties has risen to $851,387 , a 10% increase from this time a year ago. Multi-family sales are averaging $369,036 up 9.2%. While some of that rise represents increases in price, it also reflects more activity at the upper end of the market. At this point in 2013, 75% of the transactions had been consummated at under $600,000 and only 7.7% were over $1 million. To date this year, only 71.7 % (69.7 in May) were under $600,000 and almost 12% were above the $1 million mark including 10 transactions over $2 million.

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April sales soften but prices rise

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Eric Buck

Real estate sales were essentially flat with March but declined in both dollars and transaction volume versus the year ago period. Transactions fell 13% to 117 and were down by 2 sales from the 119 this March. Dollar volume fell a more modest 7% versus April 2013 to $59.5 million and were down only 2.1% from March.
The better dollar volume performance can be attributed to two factors. First, average selling prices ticked up in both the single family and multi-family markets. Year-to-date the average selling price for single family properties moved up to $846,385 versus $767,545 at this time last year. Multi-family houses have averaged $377,100 so far this year up from $319,227 last April and $344,578 for all of last year.
The second factor pushing up the dollar volume was a shift in demand to higher priced properties. Properties under $300,000 accounted for only 25.3% of all sales versus 36.2% in the prior three months while sales over $900,00 were 13.1% of sales versus 9.6% January thru March. The reduction in inventory over the last year is having a decidedly positive impact on prices and are shortening sales cycles particularly at the higher end of the market.
Year to date, transaction volume is down 7% to 421 sales but dollar volume is still ahead 2013 rising 4% to $212.8 million. Foreclosure activity is continuing to wane as there were only 8 actions this April versus 24 a year ago. Although foreclosed properties were never a major portion of the market, declining foreclosure activity can only have a positive impact on pricing.

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