The median sale price for homes in La Plata County rose 2.8% in 2025, but in-town Durango homes saw an 8.5% decline – the first drop since 2017. Despite the dip, prices remain out of reach for many residents earning median incomes.
Total home sales held steady compared with 2024, according to year-end figures released this week by Durango Area Association of Realtors.
“When people see those numbers, they think, ‘Maybe I can afford something now,’” said Heather Erb, board president of DAAR. “... But when you see a specific area of the county that seems to jump up or down in price, it’s because the homes that happened to sell during that time period were more (expensive) or less expensive, and not because the prices are indeed changing.”
In-town Durango homes dropped by $78,500 – or 8.5% – from 2024 to 2025, based on 125 homes sold in 2025 versus 112 in 2024. The last time in-town prices dipped was in 2017, when the median sale price went from $464,250 in 2016 to $449,000 in 2017.
Countywide, the median home price rose by $19,173, or 2.8%. Durango country homes rose $85,000, and non-mountain condos and townhomes increased $15,000 from 2024. More specifically, the median home price was $695,000 countywide in 2025.
In-town Bayfield homes rose $7,500, bringing the median price to $541,500.
Country homes near Durango reached a median sale price of $930,000 in 2025, up from $845,000 the year before. They were among the most-sold property types with 277 sales, just under the 283 sold in 2024.
With a countywide median home price of $695,000 in 2025, a household would need to earn $205,000 to $210,000 per year – about 175% to 180% of the area median income – to afford it.
Data from the Economic Development Alliance and the La Plata County Regional Housing Alliance shows the area median income for a family of four is about $117,500 – meaning most families of that size could not comfortably afford a home priced above $393,256.
John Wells of The Wells Group based in Durango said high housing costs stem from low inventory, expensive building materials and limited buildable land.
A city like Denver – flatter and more densely populated – has more contractors, fewer land restrictions and less reliance on outsourced materials, Wells said. As a result, he said, housing costs have remained lower overall in the metro area than in La Plata County.
According to the Colorado Association of Realtors, Denver’s median home price rose 0.4% year-over-year as of October 2025 – but remained far below Durango’s, at $580,000.
Wells said La Plata County’s rising costs reflect a more extreme version of national trends.
“It’s the norm in most of the United States, (but) what’s happened here has accelerated more rapidly, especially in this last run up of values post-COVID in Southwest Colorado,” Wells said. “And that exacerbated that affordability – it exceeded that increase in people’s wages, so much that it’s made it unaffordable, unfortunately, for a lot of people to buy their personal residence.”
Median home prices in La Plata County jumped nearly 25% between the second quarters of 2020 and 2021, rising from $422,500 to $527,100 – a nearly 25% increase.
Durango home prices rose even more sharply, climbing 30.3% from $499,000 to $650,000 over the same period.
Prices began to level out in 2023, and modest increases in line with inflation – similar to 2025 trends – are expected to continue into 2026, Erb said.
“I think what people were doing last year and the year before is they kept thinking, ‘Well, if I wait, maybe the prices will come down. If I wait, maybe the interest rates will come down,’” she said. “But we really don’t see that happening. ... It’s becoming a balanced market, so neither a buyer or seller would be in the driver’s seat, so to speak, and that’s what I’m happy about seeing.”
A total of 850 homes sold in La Plata County in 2025, up from 2023 but down slightly from 858 in 2024.
As of December 2025, there were 16% more single-family homes and 43% more condos and townhomes on the market than there a year earlier, creating more competition for sellers and more breathing room for buyers, the report said.
Statewide, homes spent an average of 68 days on the market in October 2025 – up 12% from October 2024 – allowing buyers to negotiate about 5.7% below list price, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors.
The 2025 data suggests La Plata County’s housing market is stabilizing – with no major booms or busts – but it still offers little relief for median-income families hoping to buy a home.
epond@durangoherald.com
