Third-quarter real estate transactions show nearly across-the-board median price increases coupled with a slight decrease or stagnancy in sales so far this year.
“The marketplace is tightening from a reduction in inventory that’s driven prices up,” said Vic Romano, a commercial and residential appraiser with Appraisal Solutions. “It’s affecting peripheral areas just outside city limits because of the reduction in supply. This also affects Bayfield, especially in Forest Lakes.”
Median prices for Durango and La Plata County homes have risen steadily over the past three years.
In-town Durango median home prices are at $446,500, a 1.4 percent increase compared to last year. However, sales saw a slight decrease from 150 in the first nine months of 2015 to 133 this year.
Countywide median prices are up 0.3 percent at $350,000, but sales are down from 873 to 842.
Durango country home transactions, which remained stable, increased in median price by 3.8 percent from $399,450 to $415,000.
“Across the board, the median prices are going up gradually, which is good, but they’re not skyrocketing,” said Cathy Craig, president of the Durango Area Association of Realtors. “That looks like a balanced market, looking at year-to-date last year compared to this year.”
These figures, compiled by the Durango Area Association of Realtors from its multiple listing service, include mobile and modular home sales.
Craig attributed fewer sales in some categories and more transactions in others to lower inventory, coupled with the gradually rising prices.
“And some are likely renting rather than purchasing,” she said.
Coveted in-town Bayfield real estate rose in popularity, with fewer sales signifying dwindling inventory, yet prices rose 6.7 percent, from last year’s $275,000 median to $293,500 in 2016.
At $302,500, the median cost of country homes in Bayfield shot up 14 percent, and sales were up by about 10 transactions.
Sales and prices have fluctuated from year to year in the Purgatory resort area.
Durango Mountain homes were the only residential category to see a decline in median price this year – 2.5 percent – but sales were slightly up. Condos and townhomes remain the hotter market at the resort, with a 15.7 percent increase in median price, from $148,950 to $172,375, and transactions up by 10 percent.
With sales stable and median prices slightly up, real estate agents say the current housing climate is agreeable to both buyers and sellers.
“This might be the perfect market in that it’s stable with slightly increasing median prices, but not too much,” said Don Ricedorff, a real estate broker at The Wells Group. “We’ve had stable median sales and price increases. The perfect market is balance.”
Ricedorff predicted a flat ending to 2016, which will be the fourth consecutive year of residential transactions totaling between 1,000 and 1,100.
Commercial sales are up as is the median price, from $380,000 to $410,725, because of turnover and absorption of downtown and North Main Avenue properties, including the new Four Corners Community Bank, Home Slice Pizza, Francisco’s and the former Mercury Payment Systems building.
“All of that movement spurs action in rental and purchasing on those properties, and there’s been an uptick in commercial development,” Romano said.
He predicts 2017 could be a milestone for the real estate market and a welcome one for buyers and builders as construction begins or continues at subdivisions peripheral to Durango, like Twin Buttes and Three Springs, and La Plata County writes a new land-use code to regulate development.
“That could have a significant impact,” he said, referring to the land-use code. “If development standards are loosened, I think we’ll have an uptick in construction, which will also affect pricing and demand. And with Twin Buttes coming online and other Three Springs projects, that’s a pressure release valve that could cause some pricing to level off and decrease in town.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
