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On the Market for Feb 24

Tom Ross

How much is that dirt?

What does Steamboat have in common with the priciest real estate markets in the mountains?

The Resort Alliance reports that in 2007, the average price of land here was higher than the average price for a condominium.



That’s a situation that is more common in ultra-expensive markets such as Aspen, Telluride and Teton County, Wyo. Even in Vail, the average condo, at $929,184, is more expensive than the average land price of $515,526.

The ratio flipped in Steamboat last year as the average land transaction jumped to $457,446, passing the average condo price of $406,446.



To be fair, a few very large land sales in Routt County probably skewed the average.

Still, Steamboat’s inverse relationship between land and condos is not typical of the mountain markets closest to Steamboat on the graph, though Summit County’s land price of $386,279 surpassed condo prices by $2,000 last year. Sun Valley, Idaho, and Park City, Utah, join Vail with average land transaction prices still well below condo prices.

In Telluride, the average land price in 2007 was $1.658 million, but you could still score a condo for $1.5 million. In Whistler, B.C., the average land price was $1.7 million, but condos were a relative bargain at an average sales price of $733,588.

In Aspen, the average land price was just more than $2.5 million, and condos were far less costly at $1.25 million.

Get ready for a shocker: the average price of a home in Aspen dropped from $5.38 million in 2006 to $4.147 million in 2007. Keeping that in perspective, an unusually large home sale in 2006 may have skewed the entire residential market.

Closer to home, the average price of a home in Steamboat last year was $803,000, up from $664,000 in 2006 and $600,000 in 2005.

Probing the blogo-state

Prudential Steamboat Realty co-owner/broker Cameron Boyd is reporting $50,000,000 in personal sales last year, but is determined not to be complacent in 2008.

“Although the overall market in 2007 was up over $450,000,000 from 2006, the fourth quarter showed significant declines in sales volume,” Boyd said. “That’s why I’ve decided to hire a full-time marketing director to join my team. David Wittlinger has been brought on board to help ensure that our listings receive the exposure they’re going to need to attract buyers in the coming year.”

Wittlinger promises to pursue creative approaches to marketing Boyd’s listings, possibly to include viral marketing, Internet blogging and search engine optimization.


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