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!