2008 Durango Real Estate Sales YTD-Part One

In my sales analysis for La Plata County residential sales, I've broken down the statistics in $200,000 price bands up to $1 million; all sales over $1 million are shown in one price band. All statistics are from January 1 through September 30th. Fractional or timeshare units were not included in these figures.

Year-to-date, 533 units have sold in this county. Over half of them, 289 to be precise, were in the price range of $200,000-$499,999. The next busiest price range, with 122 units sold, was the $400,000- $599,999 bracket. The $1 million and up price range has had only nine sales so far this year.

Average Days on the Market runs between 157 days and 192 days for units that sell for under $800,000. From $800,000 and up, average days on the market goes to over 300 days. Interestingly, the median days on the market ranges from only 115 days to 140 days for everything under $800,000. The overall median days on the market for all sales was just 124 days.

Absorption Rate is time it would take all active listings to sell assuming no additional properties came on the market and that nobody withdrew their property from the market. In a fairly normal market, we tend to say a 6 to 7 month supply of homes considered in balance. On September 30 we have some very interesting statistics. Overall absorption rate was 1.7 years. However, properties priced at $600,000 and above have absorption rates greater than three years. Generally speaking, the longer the absorption rate, the more the market becomes a buyer's market.

Sales To List Price % is the function of what a property actually sold for compared to the last asking price. For instance, if you had a home listed at $100,000 and it sold for $94,500, then to list price percentage would be 94.5%. Durango was always tended to have a high percentage for this figure. The overall average was 96.25% while the busiest price bracket... $200,000 - $399,999... showed a list to sales price ratio of 97.02%. At the same time, the $1 million and over price bracket had a sales to list price ratio of 93.15%. Summarizing, the busiest price range had the highest sales to list price ratio while the price range with the least number of units sold had the lowest sales to list price ratio. That is just a good example of the laws of supply and demand.

Number of All Cash Sales A statistic that I started to track last year (and can be reviewed in my January blog postings), is the number of transactions where no loan was obtained by the buyer and the purchase price was paid for in all cash. In this ever volatile market that we are in... and actually have been in for the last year or so... I have noticed that more people are investing their cash into free and clear real estate. The overall percent of all cash transactions year-to-date 2008, was 18.01%. The lowest price bracket was the $400-$600,000 range where only 12.3% were for cash; while the highest percentage was in the $1 million and over homes were 44.4% of the buyers paid all-cash. A very surprising figure, in my opinion. Is the fact that 26.6% of all sales between $100,000 and $200,000 were paid for in all-cash.

Where Did They Buy? The largest segment of sales occurred within the city limits of Durango with 254 units. The Durango rural market segment enjoyed 145 sales; while the Bayfield in town and Bayfield rural combined for a total of 81 units. The resort market at Purgatory and at the lacier Club and Tamarron started out strong but became very quiet as the year went on. A total of 27 units have been sold year-to-date.

See the Excel Spreadsheet I've accumulated all of these figures in an easy to review Excel spreadsheet on my BuyDurango.com website. Click Here for a link to that location.

Part 2 will be comparing the 2008 sales statistics to those of 2007. That blog article should be out in a day or two.