Year to Date Statistics

Now that we are into the six month of the year, I thought I would do some analysis and review of our year-to-date figures for sales of Durango real estate. Buying homes in Durango, just like any other part of the country, can be a stressful event. Am I getting the best deal? Am I getting the right house? If I waited longer will interest rates go down? What if somebody else writes an offer on the same house that I like... should I amend my offer? These are all typical questions and thoughts that go through most buyers' minds while they're in that buying process. I know many people feel this way and over my 33 years of being in this business I have found the best way to deal with the emotional aspect of buying real estate in Durango is to give guidance from a factual perspective with solid sales statistics and trend analysis. Today's blog will be on sales stats from January 1 through June 11 of this year regarding residential sales in La Plata County only. That means that Mancos, Pagosa Springs, and Silverton are not included in these figures. Durango, Bayfield, Ignacio and Durango Mountain Resort are included.

There have been a total of 259 units sold year to date. 190 of those sales were either in the city limits of Durango or just outside the city limits of Durango. There were 23 sales at the resort, 16 sales of homes in the city limits of Bayfield and 18 home sales in rural Bayfield. Clearly the vast majority of the activity is Durango centered. Of those 259 sales 137 were financed with what is considered conventional bank financing while a whopping 41 units used the FHA financing. That number is especially high and was clearly driven by the first time home buyer tax credit which expired this last month. Interestingly, 59 people out of the 259 sales paid for their purchase with all cash... that is no loan was required. That is a very large number.

A statistic that we track is what percent of the asking price does a property eventually sell at. That percentage varies in different parts of the country. Were you have an extremely soft market you might see a 75 or 80% sales to list price percentage. When I used to live in Detroit years ago even in a strong market, it was typical to offer 75% of the asking price and maybe end up settling at about 80% of the asking price. Here in Durango it would be very unusual to be under 92 or 93% and that is having looked at it and watched that statistic for over 30 years. In looking at all of the Durango in town sales this year, the average percent was 95. For Durango rural properties it was 92%; Bayfield in town properties were 95%; for Bayfield rural properties, the sales price to list price percentage was 93%. The softest market was the condominium market up at the ski area where sellers were typically accepting 76% of their asking price. That would clearly indicate a soft market up at the ski area. The difficulty presented at the ski area is financing. It is extremely difficult to locate financing for properties that are used in a rental pool or her what we commonly call condo-tels... condominium units that are rented out like hotel rooms. The financial shakeup that has been going on in the country is certainly not found a good source for those type of loans yet.

If you have this type of information, then as a buyer clearly that would help you in structuring an offer so that not only will you be able to get the best deal but it will also help to remove any doubts that are so common that I talked about earlier when buying Durango Colorado real estate. Nobody likes to be uneasy in that type of transaction and certainly anybody at Team Lorenz can help walk you through that process and give you the statistical guidance that is required.