How'd you make it through the holidays? Did you come out a well rested, well oiled, high functioning human, ready to tackle another new calendar year? This time of the year always has the taste of hopes and dreams, with a whiff of fresh starts in the air. I'm no exception, as this is generally a slower time for me. Which is good! It's an opportunity to get some family time in over the holidays, while evaluating the best way for me to grow my business in a healthy way by ensuring I'm offering the best value to my friends and clients. One thing I go back and forth on is the sample of real estate data I pull from. For these market updates, I use the city of Durango, Colorado; which includes anything that has a Durango mailing address, which also includes properties up in the resort area at Purgatory. That sample set is going to have different data than looking at only properties within Durango City Limits. I know some realtors like to do market updates for just in-town Durango, or stick built homes vs condo/TH, but I feel those sample sets are too small and easily skewed in this market (which is a reason why I analyze by median sales price), not to mention the purpose of this little ditty of an email is meant to give an overview of the Durango market, not a deep dive into every structure with four walls and a roof in southwest Colorado. I was curious if I was missing a difference in coverage, so take a look at this graph, which has the median sales price of the "3 areas" of Durango, and then Durango as a whole (red bar), which is the sample set I use. The green bar is Durango Mountain area up by Purgatory. There's not many monthly sales, hence the big swings (and a reason I use median sales prices).
   

The red Durango line pretty much maintains the middle ground of all areas. And you can see how erratic the Durango Mountain (Resort) Area is due to low volume. If I notice anomalies of significance, I'll point them out, but analyzing stats can be a full time job; not to mention you really can tell any story you want with data, and it already takes me long enough to get these market updates out! If you have questions about a particular area, or a specific interest in cabins in the woods or condos in downtown Durango, I'm happy to review that data.

SNOWDOWN is coming! Get your patchouli out and your hippy on, this year's theme is Peace & Love.

 
 
The beginning of last year was looking kind of rough between the lack of market activity and low sales prices. That gave some people hope to find a deal, and deals were found. Unfortunately, others saw the rough start and expected the market to trend even further in their favor to buy, so they waited, and that didn't go so well. Despite the disparity you see between the different years on the sales price graph, bear with me here, the average-of-the-monthly-median-sales-prices in Durango went up 9% in 2023. Any statisticians or mathematicians here? Is there a name for that calculation, the average of a median?

As mentioned previously, the beginning of last year had a pretty slow start, but if you factor in only the 2nd half of the year, then we saw a 15% YoY appreciation in Durango! Since the graphs above can speak to the big picture for themselves, I thought it might be fun to throw out some other interesting stats within the area.
  • Mancos saw a significant YoY decrease in median sales price by 10.7%, and finished out the year with an annual median sales price of $435K.
  • Bayfield also saw a YoY decrease in median sales price by less than 1%, but still significant considering the growth Durango saw. I wonder what their numbers will look like this year with news of Bayfield getting city-wide fiber internet. Quality high speed internet is going to be a game changer in rural areas out here.  Bayfield's annual median sales price was $497K.
  • Pagosa Springs saw a small YoY increase just shy of 2%, for an annual median sales price of $552K.
  • Overall, we're seeing more active inventory across the market, even though we're down in new listings and sales. That caused to arithmetic to trigger and we saw the month's supply of inventory tease a shift back to a neutral market. But we were also seeing record high sales prices at the same time. Didn't really feel like a shift away from a Seller's market though, even if the math said it was happening.
  • For Durango, the fastest mover was Townhomes in-town Durango, at an average of 58 DOM. Condos in the Durango rural (not mountain/resort) area moved faster, but there were only a handful of those sold last year, so maybe not a metric that carries too much weight. 
    • If you're wondering where a rural condo is, a couple sold in Durango West 2 (they look and live like townhomes) and a couple up in Edgemont Ranch (that are essentially single family homes broken up into multiple stand-alone units).
  • Of the 822 new listings in Durango, 281 were priced over $1M, and 188 were priced under $500K. In 2022, those amounts were 276 and 224 out of 939 new listings.
  • Of the 638 sales in Durango, 297 were bought with cash, 51% of the total dollar sales volume.

My thoughts on the Durango real estate market for 2024? Man, I've got a few. Initially, I think if you're on a budget and willing to make it work, Mancos and Bayfield could be good spots to consider- did the bubble of their micro market popped? Are the increasing sales prices of Durango going to send a wave of folks out that way? And what's Durango going to do?  I've been saying for years now, compared to other Colorado resort areas, Durango was one of the most affordable, and I think the real estate here had plenty of room to grow in value. The kicker is, we're seeing that growth in real estate, but not in wages. If the fed ends up dropping rates this year, which it's still looking likely (sounds like we'll know more this time next month?), it's going to bring more Buyers to the table, and encourage more Sellers to ditch their golden cuffs and make a move. If rates drop enough, there's a scenario where we could see another jump in home values as opposed to just sustaining them. Is Durango simply on a track to grow and not look back like other mountain resort communities in this state? If it sustains another year of near double-digit appreciation this year, it just might be, but there's a long way to go, and time for interventions and corrections. As I mentioned earlier, when fiber internet comes to areas like Edgemont, Falls Creek Ranch, Rafter J, Shenandoah, and other rural areas like the Animas Valley, I expect to see an increase in those property values.