Tag Archive for: Jackson Hole market

Jackson Hole Update – Real Estate in 2009

The final, final statistics are not quite finished but Sotheby’s International Realty Jackson Hole Brokerage has compiled the final sales numbers from the Teton Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service for 2009.  The past year will go down as one of the most difficult real estate years in history.  With financing difficult to find and more importantly a complete lack of buyer interest, sales across the entire spectrum slowed t a crawl.

The year did not start out well at all with only 20 transactions in the first quarter!  The second quarter improved a little with 63 transactions.  Finally during the last half of the year we started to see some activity market wide and had a total of 143 deals take place.  The totals are incredible when compared to the previous few years.  Unit volume declined 28% vs. 2008 and 65% vs. 2007.  Sales volume was even worse being 52% lower than 2008 and 71% lower than in 2007!

From Garth and Christy’s perspective the Jackson Hole market has a ways to go before we see any type of recovery.  There are chunks of the market that have not realized the decline in sales and prices and have refused to adjust with the current market.  There are 53 active listings between $2 and $3 million with only 1 pending sale in this price range.  The low range in the market $350,000 and below has barely adjusted which is resulting in a completely stalled market. 

What does this mean?  I will be updating the blog in the next few weeks and I’ll try to lay the frame work for recovery.  We have seen some motivated sellers which have resulted in sales so we are hoping sellers and the real estate community is starting to grasp the severity of the declining market.  The only way we recover is for the market to reflect the 30% to 40% decline and adjust the prices accordingly.

Jackson Hole is still a fantastic community.  It offers good schools, a top notch hospital, incredible arts and social environment, fabulous resturants and that small town charm many people desire.  Wyoming still offers incredible tax savings, abundant wildlife, great ski resorts and ample space for recreation.  These aspects are still here so we see a lot of opportunity for Jackson and the real estate market to rebound.

Stay tuned for additional information and thank you for visiting the Jackson Hole Experts Blog provided by Garth and Christy Gillespie.

Jackson Hole Real Estate Market Update June 3, 2009

It’s time for our JH monthly real estate update and we have encouraging news on the Jackson Hole real estate market – there’s a pulse! We are finally starting to see some meaningful movement on the seller’s side of things (list prices are coming down – averaging 15%) and the result is that some buyers are taking advantage of this movement.

Today (6/3/2009) at the Sotheby’s International Realty office meeting we had many agents report “under contract properties”. This included a walk in customer who wrote a contract on an in town property priced over $1 million, a home in Rafter J, a vacant lot south of town, a vacant lot north of town at the Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis and a condo in the town of Jackson. The one area that raised our eyebrows was that fact 2 more vacant lots went under contract. We have been discussing the market with a lot of people and we keep mentioning that we feel that the vacant lot segment of the market will help pull the market out of its slump and we are starting to see that prediction come true. Construction prices are low, material prices are low, design and layout services are lower and available – there’s just a lot of indicators that make us believe that vacant lots make some investment sense at the moment.

The issue in the market continues to be inventory – over 850 listings compared to 470 at this time last year and that equals 42 months of inventory at the current sales pace. There are many choices for buyers in all price ranges. If you do not like one house there is another to look at. If a buyer makes an offer and it is not well received, there is another seller to entertain. Sometimes deals are not occuring but we are starting to see a lot more of them coming together when compared to 3 months ago.

We are still waiting for the low end market to see these indicators and to adjust to the market. There is a general consensus and there is starting to be a statistical pattern that the market is responding to a 25% discount from the high market. There is confusion on where the high was but generally the highest sale in a like category minus 25% gives us a current value. Sure there are exceptions but currently the lower end market (under $500,000) has not adjusted any where close to this adjustment and it is showing in pending transactions – 3 pending deals….

Make sure you check out www.jacksonholeexperts.com (link is below). We have a lot of great new listings and have just updated our extremely popular Top Picks Page. Christy and I select great values on the market every few weeks and update them on the Top Pick page. Next month we will have the 2nd quarter review – stay tuned. Thanks for reading and if you would like additional information of the Jackson Hole market please call us toll free at 877-739-8056. We also love referrals so if you have anyone interested in Jackson Hole real estate or thinking about listing please let them know about us!