September residential home sales in Summit County, CO were slightly higher than a typical year. However, they were substantially lower than last year’s extremes.
Pandemic Sales
We have all heard how the pandemic ignited second home sales across the country. That kicked in during the second half of 2020 in Summit County. After a shut down during March and April, July through December saw record sales. The fewest sales for that six month period was December with 195 residential sales. 2020 ended the year with 2,146 home sales. You have to go back to 2006 to see more sales in one year.
Strong sales carry over into 2021
This year continued the strong home sales in Summit County, CO. Each month through June beat the previous year and, often times, the last few years’ monthly sales. The second half of this year is competing with record sales numbers from last year. While homes sales are still strong, they cannot compare with the monthly sales last year. This July home sales were 9.3% below last July. The gap keeps widening from there. August was 31% below and September was 32.6% lower. Our strong start to the year has sales still up by 16.8% through September. I expect that number to continue to decline as finish out the year. Even with this anticipated decline, sales are strong this year and should beat more than a decade of previous annual sales numbers.
Short term rental restrictions and home sales
The recent restrictions on short term rentals imposed by the Town of Breckenridge and the moratorium in unincorporated Summit County has caused a rush by homebuyers to get in under the wire. With deadlines to have homes under contract and/or closed in order to obtain a short term rental license, October home sales in Summit County will be impressive. Although, still probably below last year’s October sales of 366 homes.
Few Summit County homes for sale
With the exception of about 6 weeks this summer, the number of residential properties for sale in Summit County has stayed below 200. And even as low as 124 in March. That’s generally around one month of inventory. The low supply is making buyers compete for the most desirable homes and pushing prices higher.
Homebuilders struggle to find land
The short supply of homes would generally be a fantastic opportunity for home builders. However, supply chain issues and rising material prices have kept them in check. On top of that there are not many building sites for sale. If a builder doesn’t own a lot now or are not building on a client’s lot, it’s a struggle to buy anything. Builders have had to compete for land, again pushing prices higher. There are currently only 36 pieces of land for sale in the entire county. That’s just over a two month supply. Slightly better than the residential market but not enough to slow things down.
September 2021 residential sales
September had 208 residential home sales in Summit County. As I mentioned previously, that’s fewer than 2020’s September sales of 313, It is more sales, however, than September in 2019, 2018, or 2017. In September 31.25% of sales were cash sales. That’s slightly higher than the 27% we saw over the last 12 months. That may be due to competing offers. A cash sale can often be more appealing to a seller than an offer with a loan. Interest rates hovering around 3% may entice some buyers to get a loan but if they cannot secure a home to buy, low interest rates mean very little.
Residential homes stayed on the market an average of 20 days in September. Most were on the market substantially shorter than that with the median days on the market at just 4 days. The lowest priced sale was a deed restricted studio at Copper Mountain for $242,000. The highest sale was a Shock Hill home in Breckenridge for $5,750,000 that was walking distance to the gondola. The average sale price in September was $1,211,896.
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