Real-estate sales in well-heeled Pitkin County set a record in 2006, outpacing 2005 by nearly 19 percent.
Property transactions in Pitkin County – home to Aspen and Snowmass – totaled $2.69 billion in 2006, according to the Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder’s office.
“We certainly have experienced a very strong market this past year,” said Hetta Heath, an Aspen real-estate broker and past president of the Aspen Board of Realtors.
One of her listings garnered three offers in its first day on the market and sold for more than the original listing price, she said.
“We’re seeing a lot of higher- end homes on the market, and prices are continuing to go up,” she said.
The go-go nature of the Pitkin County market stands in stark contrast to that of metro Denver, where foreclosures have flattened the market and properties are lingering unsold.
“There are just not many places to build,” said Rod Woelsle, president of the Aspen Board of Realtors and managing broker for Aspen Land and Homes/ Sotheby’s International. “It’s the simple economics of supply and demand. There’s money coming out of Wall Street, baby boomers are buying second homes, and interest rates are still good.”
The average price of a single- family home in Aspen reached $5.44 million in 2006, up from $4.3 million in 2005, Woelsle said. The median single-family home price was $4.16 million, up from $3.54 million in 2005.
In Eagle County, brokers are slightly more subdued in their assessment of the market but expect 2006 sales totals to tie, if not beat, the 2005 total.
“The primary-home market was a little slower at the end of the year, but the rest of the second-home market and so forth continues to hold up quite well,” said Jim Flaum, president and managing broker of Vail’s Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate.
Through November, property transactions in Eagle County totaled $2.5 billion, according to data from Slifer Smith & Frampton. December data were not yet available. In 2005, Eagle County real-estate sales totaled $2.58 billion.
Bev Trout, an owner at Keller Williams Mountain Properties and past chairwoman of the Vail Board of Realtors, said the market remains strong but has returned to more sustainable levels.
“For a while, we had runaway appreciation, and that’s no longer the case. It makes me feel a lot better because we can sustain the growth rate we’re seeing right now,” she said.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-954-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
