What is happening in the condo market in Grand County, Colorado? - by Janene Johnson

What is happening in the condo market in Grand County, Colorado? Especially in the ski resort town of Winter Park located in the Colorado Rocky Mountains west of Denver, condominium ownership is a wonderful way to have a second home but also to make some rental income to offset costs. When you are looking into the purchase of a condominium in a resort community, it is important to keep a few things in mind. The cost of ownership should be the most important consideration. These costs include monthly debt service (if you have a loan on the property), monthly assessments, utilities, etc. If the hot tubs, swimming pools and other common amenities are of no importance to you, you can purchase in complexes that dont include these benefits and therefore, their monthly dues should be considerably lower. But keep in mind, by far the majority of the condo buyer in the Winter Park area is probably looking for those complexes with all of the bells and whistles, it makes it that much easier to rent the property out in order to recoup some of the costs. As a quick summary, here are some statistics that I just pulled from the Grand County Board of Realtors MLS website. Using the time from of January 1, 2015 through July 5, 2015 versus January 1, 2014 through July 5, 2014, I have come up with some interesting facts. First, there were 331 condos actively on the market in 2014 versus the 271 on the market today. That is an 18% decrease. 88 condos sold in 2014 for this time frame, versus 82 this year, a 6% decrease. But the total volume sold in 2014 was $18,043,125 versus 2015s volume of $18,585,390 or a 3% increase. The average price for condo sales in 2014 was $205,036 versus $226,651 in 2015, or a 10% increase. We are on the right track, thats for sure. There are many moving parts to a purchase of a second home in a ski resort town but even a few more for those properties located in a condominium complex. The good news is that it is a strong market, there is a lot of information out there to make any purchase of a condominium not only safe but profitable and the lifestyle of mountain living makes it all worth while!