Everyone wants a cabin in the woods
Publication: VailDaily.Com; Date: 01/24/2005
By Cliff Thompson
EAGLE COUNTY -To understand how hot the real estate market in Eagle County
is you need only consider what happened to a new project Vail Resorts brought to market
earlier this month.
The company received enough interest from potential buyers on Arrabelle
- a new 67-unit luxury condo project in Lionshead scheduled for groundbreaking this spring
- that it resorted to an auction to determine who would get to purchase the units.
More than 500 people bid on the project that has units priced from $3
million to $5 million.
That demand for real estate, which was evident throughout 2004, helped
drive annual real estate sales to a new record of $2.25 billion. That's 133 percent of the
existing record of $1.7 billion set in 2000 and 151 percent better than 2003's total.
December's sales totaled $280 million - also a one-month record - on 294
transactions, statistics show.
Must Have
Fueling the demand and increase in prices is a dwindling inventory of
what's for sale.
"It's the classic supply-demand thing," said Led Gardner of
Sonnenalp Real Estate. "Demand continues to increase while there is very little new
supply."
The Vail Multi Listing Service, which, among other things, details what
is for sale, has 611 residential properties on it, and that's about half of what has been
typical in previous years.
"That's not a lot of inventory," said Michael Slevin of Prudential
Gore Range Properties. "As a result, people are jumping on anything that comes on the
market."
The average price of what sold in December - $952,539 - reflected that
demand as well did the sale of numerous properties prices in excess of $4 million. Over
2004 the average sales price was $675,939.
Top Shelf Sales
Topping the list of sales in December was a $10.1 million sale of a 10,000
square-foot home in Bachelor Gulch, followed by a $8.5 million sale of a 9,500 square-foot
home also in Bachelor Gulch.
Sales of properties priced at more than $4 million - there were 10 of
them - totaled $57.39 million. But it's not just the high-end that's active, said Slevin.
"It's countywide," he said. "From first-time buyers to
people looking to upgrade."
The market is generating its own momentum as prices escalate and allow
sellers to become buyers.
"Folks are getting into the market and displacing others who are
upgrading into new homes," said Slevin, adding that continued low interest rates have
made purchasing easier, too.
"Buyers know it's a seller's market," added Gardner. "If
they see a property they like, they need to go ahead and buy it or it will sell to someone
else. It's a great time to sell property. It will command a price you couldn't have gotten
a year ago."
The most active market segment was in entry-level homes - those priced
at less than $500,000. A total of 145 transactions occurred in this market segment last
month and the average selling price was just over $300,000.
2005 Strong Too
Based on the properties they're showing this month, both Slevin and Gardner
said they expect the demand to continue strong through 2005.
"Showing activity is still very strong," Slevin said. "The
problem we're running into is low inventory levels."
Raw land and commercial sales accounted for $56 million in sales in December
and totaled $386.3 million for all of 2004.
The boom is occurring in the midst of a $1 billion renovation of Vail
Village and Lionshead that will add nearly 1,000 new lodging units.
The sales spurt started in August 2003 after war and terrorism worries
calmed
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