Now that people got their peace, love and groove on, and Taylor's boyfriend finished playing at the Usher concert, we can finally get this year started! I hope you're ready, we're pretty much halfway through February, and a month away from the first day of Spring. If you're in the area and don't have plans for this weekend, head up to Silverton for some Skijoring!
 
Despite the recent news that inflation still isn't in its preferable happy place, I continue to have a feeling our market is headed for a vigorous year. I know those charts up there look a bit dopey, so I threw in an extra one below to liven the place up a bit. (More on that one later.) Looking at the data above in a calendar year, there's not too much to talk about yet. Median sales prices are still trending up, ever since they started cranking last spring, except this time around sales prices are up YoY along with a minor uptick in sales and inventory. This time last year, the national 30yr average was about a half point lower than it currently is, so we've had a full year of 6%+ rates to affect our market, and here January is, up 18% in avg sales price from last Jan. We still have a lack of inventory: 160 active listings in Durango last month, compared to 410 active listings in Jan 2020! So despite record high sales prices and low inventory, there's still fundamental demand to buy in Durango. It's sounding like the feds have slowed their roll on cutting rates for now, but when it happens, it's going to open those floodgates just a bit more. The secondary "perk" when rates get low enough, is that they'll start creating Sellers, which will add to the inventory (as not everyone who sells stays), which in turn will compliment the lower rates in bringing more Buyers to the table.

The real estate circle of life in 2024!  Maybe?

If you own a condo or townhome, how are your HOA dues looking? Have they perhaps increased over the last year? I was just looking at the HOA rates for Tamarron, (if you don't know, a large resort area about 7 minutes south of Purg) for this year and whoa nelly! HOA dues were always a bit higher than average there; the unofficial "resort premium coupled with the maintenance and upkeep that it covers, allowing for hand's off ownership, which is attractive for that market. Taking a 2BR condo just shy of 1300 sq/ft, the HOA was $538/mo last year. This year, it's now $770, a 43% increase due to increased insurance costs. And from I'm hearing, increasing HOA costs are happening across the board. I wonder if we're going to see a wave of owner/occupant condo/TH hitting the market this year? Will investors scoop them up and simply pass the additional costs on through rent?
 

I put this map together last month to take a quick look at some specific towns and neighborhoods.  Keep in mind this is meant to be a snapshot of the general market, a median sales price of all sales. So you might be wondering how in-town Durango is so low, and comparable to Three Springs and DW2- it's because there are so many condos in town that bring the overall sales price down. If you count only stickbuilt homes in town, then the median is closer to $780K. I didn't want to chase the data too far and factor too many different segments, just wanted to keep it clean and simple. Statistics don't always like that though.