I don’t know what’s going on nationally, but in our local market there has been activity the past two weeks that was non existent the past several months.  In the month of June alone, our real estate office put 16 properties under contract, compared to fewer than that number total the past 6 months.  I’m telling you, things are happening!

I’m not ready to run out and declare that the bottom has been reached or the economy is again healthy, but I do believe the free fall has been arrested, and that people are starting to get off the fence and back into the game.  Prices have come down, but I don’t think in an overall manner will come down much further.  From what I have noticed,  people are recognizing this and understand that there may not be another buyer’s market such as this for a long time.

Some more numbers for your dining and dancing pleasure:  sales prices are on average 91% of the current asking price and 80% of the original asking price.  If you bought a property in Jackson Hole prior to 2006, chances are, if you have to sell, you’ll end up making money on the sale, just not as much if you had sold at the top.  Doesn’t mean you’ve lost.
Pigs and hogs, Dear Reader.  Pigs and hogs.

…”Don’t play ball in the house!”  She also said, “If you haven’t anything nice to say about (insert name of friend/foe/ex-girlfriend/that nun who was my eighth grade teacher here), then don’t say anything at all!”  The obvious lack of recent posts to this blog that I’m certain you have noticed might indicate that the same could be said for the real estate market in Jackson Hole these days.  If that’s what you are thinking, the three of you would be only mostly correct.

As of this post, there are a total of 42 residential properties under contract, six of which are re-sales in older, established neighborhoods, ranging from $695,000 to $10,500,000.  The rest are new construction projects:  a condo-hotel at Teton Village, a new townhome development at Snow King, and the latest in urban living in Town.  We should see these begin to close (some possibly at renegotiated and lower prices) within the next few weeks.  We’ve also seen a large commercial center, listed by your humble servants at LiveJacksonHole.com, priced at $8,795,000 go under contract after JUST FIVE DAYS ON THE MARKET!  The moral of the story seems to be, if it makes sense, it will sell.  And believe it or not, there are several properties that make sense out there.

I’ll be back soon with a list of my top ten or so picks for best you’d-be-silly-not-to-make-a move-on-one-of-these-deals-out-there-right-now!  Until then, keep your stick on the ice.

I’ve been thinking lately that if I received a dime every time I have been asked this question, I’d be able to finance the bailout of the Big 3.  Of course, I wouldn’t unless I was given the keys to Rick Wagoner’s G5 and the labor unions were busted up, however, I grew up in a non-union state, with non-union parents in a non-union house and have strong opinions about things.  But I digress…

I’ll paint you a picture:  market movement in volatile times resembles a giant V and not a U or an O or a…sorry.  Anyway, the point being that the bottom looks like the point of the V and lasts but an instant in time.  You fence-sitters out there that are trying to time the bottom perfectly are already suffering from analysis paralysis and will come in too late, deciding to make your move once you’ve seen the bottom, which probably occurred three weeks prior.  Buying when the market is on the way down or on the way up is really the way to realize gain in your investment, whether it’s a stock purchase, a real estate purchase, pork bellies, whatever.  Movement in a market is a good thing; stagnation the killer.

Upon hearing the question and not receiving payment in the form of a dime, I’ve been encouraging would-be buyers (and you know who you are) to rather than wait for others to determine the bottom, create one of your own.  With real estate inventories at their current (very high) levels it is the buyer that right now holds all of the cards.   Make an offer you’re comfortable with.  Make several.  And don’t worry about offending anyone.  It’s a little-known fact that if a seller learns you like their home but are considering making or have made offers simultaneously to other sellers, the level of cooperation you’ll receive has a better-than-average chance of increasing.  Competition is good, despite what youth sports organizations in New England would have you believe.

Right now, markets across the country are lethargic at best for many reasons.  In addition to the above-described indecision, fear and uncertainty have people seemingly unwilling to make their move.  I know that financing has been a challenge to receive, although I just closed a transaction on Thursday with a self-employed couple with good assets and 20% down where financing was approved in less than 7 days.  It’s out there, my friends.  You just have to look a little harder to find it.  And pray that the banks continue to free up credit and use whatever portion of the $700B they were given for what it was intended.

For the two or three of you who read my post from yesterday (thanks, mom and dad), this is a follow-up to that.  I have a client who made an offer on a home in the Aspens, a great neighborhood here in Jackson Hole.  The home had been on the market for a little more than two months, and had seen several price reductions in order to affect a quick sale.

After seeing no action for the first 60+ days, the offer we tendered was suddenly competing with two others.  For those of you keeping score at home, I’m sorry to report that ours was not the winning offer, but the fact that in a down market, we had competition brings up an interesting point:  THERE ARE SOME GREAT DEALS TO BE FOUND OUT THERE!

With a little extra work ahead of time and if eyes and ears are kept open, this will prove not to be an isolated case.  Once (if) the sales price is made public, I believe people will realize what a great deal this was, which may help loosen up a few checkbooks.

Dulcius ex asperis.  I promise.

While hiking with a friend this weekend, the topic of real estate came up in discussion, as it frequently does with this particular person.  He and I both started in this business at the same time, going through real estate school together, and sharing a desk at the office for a while, before he left to focus on new project development and I stayed with the same company to focus on brokering ranch and recreational real estate.

Anyhow, we had both separately heard that a local economic guru had likened what is happening in the local/national/global economy to someone having hit the RESET button, sending the market instantly back to 2003.  Tough as this may be to accept (aren’t home prices ALWAYS supposed to increase?) it would certainly seem that this is truly the case.  I’m trying to sell a home right this second that was put on the market four months ago in the low one-million range and it looks as though the home might sell in the low-$800K range.  While there are some extenuating circumstances surrounding this particular sale, it was a good buy at its original price and is a smokin’ deal IF it ends up going in the low 8s like I think it will.  The last single-family home to sell at this price in this neighborhood?  You guessed it:  2003.
What does any of this mean?  I think it means that this is a great time to buy real estate, especially in Jackson Hole.  It’s just not the easiest time to do so.