March 4th Market Update
Spring is in the air and here in Jackson we are starting to feel a slight change in the weather. During the last week of January Jackson broke out of the 30’s for the first time since November. It is amazing how nice it can feel after the long winter. That is not to say that skin season is over yet. Jackson Hole is blessed with some of the best skiing in the west. The base snow depth is above 100 inches and total snowfall at Rendezvous Bowl is already over 400 inches. We are anticipating a very busy spring ski season with flights mostly booked.
Speaking of flights….Frontier Airlines announced last week that it would begin flying three planes a day into Jackson Hole starting in mid-May. The airline is planning on using a 70 seat Q-400 turboprop with flights to Denver. This is great news as it should increase competition with United and will lower prices on flights to many destinations.
Real Estate News – A mixed bag of information. From the prospective of looking at data the numbers are really starting to show a slow down. From the prospective of the “pulse” of the market, Christy and I are feeling like there is still some strength in the real estate market. If a property is unique and desired there are still buyers out there ready to pounce. During the past month we have seen condos in the $400,000 to $700,000 almost disappear. There are also 20 pending transactions over $1,000,000 with 10 over $2,000,000.
On the other end of the spectrum February only saw 17 sales which is the lowest recorded number of sales in the past 3 years. Of the 17 sales 8 were condos, 5 were land sales and 4 were residential sales. As mentioned before there are 41 current pending transactions. Active inventory continued to grow to 441 active listings compared to 404 in January. The number of closed transactions per month fell for the 7th time in the past 8 months. This is the longest and steepest decline in closed activity in the past 4 years.
