October/November Market Report

The lifts (or at least one) are spinning at Winter Park Resort for the 21/22 ski season- hooray! Time to sharpen those edges, wipe the dust off your goggles and make sure no critter has taken residency in your ski boots! We are experiencing a slight lull before the storm of visitors arrive for the holiday season. However, our towns have been busier than most shoulder seasons. While this is great for the local businesses, stafng is lean so kindness and patience is requisite. As for the real estate market, we typically see few new listings until after the rst of the year. This doesnt change the fact that many buyers are hoping Santa will deliver new listing alerts so it is a great time to be a Seller with almost no competition. This past week, the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2022, well see conventional loan limits jump to $1,000,000 in many counties across the country. This jump is due to the cost of housing rising exponentially. Conventional loans are those federally backed, packaged and sold on Wall Street. Jumbo loans are not federally insured through institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In the Winter Park area, the current, average sales price for a single family home is $1,316,829 per November MLS statistics. Curiously, the current conventional loan limit in Grand County is the lowest in the state at $548,250. This certainly doesnt make sense given our current market but its not unusual as somehow we get missed by the creators of such gures. Although it is likely it is the lowest because the average sales price in western Grand County is $429,503. Comparatively, Summit and Eagle Counties (home to ski resorts of Breckenridge, Copper, Vail, Beaver Creek, A-Basin, Keystone) have the highest conforming loan limit of $822,250. Gareld and Pitkin Counties (home to Aspen resorts, Sunlight) loan limit is $765,600. Routt County (Steamboat Springs) is third highest with a conforming limit of $678,500. Both Denver and Boulder County's limits exceed Grand Countys with $596,850 and $645,300 respectively. The baseline loan limit in Colorado is expected to increase to $650,000 in 2022. Back to the WSJ article- they name parts of New York and California where the conventional loan limits will hit or exceed 1M but also where the highest current limit in CA is on par with Summit and Eagle Counties in CO. It will be interesting to see what happens in our Colorado market for sure and if Grand County jumps from the baseline level. Switching gears, but highly relevant to our local real estate market, are 1031 exchanges. There is a justiable fear that these tax deferred sales of investment properties will be on the chopping block during Bidens administration. With the recent passing of the 1Trillion Infrastructure bill, many investors fear that the elimination of the 1031, or drastic modication of the tax code, will be a repayment mechanism (or reconciliation bill) for new bridges, waterway improvements, broadband enhancements, etc. It is too early to conrm but some sources are declaring that the elimination of the 1031 tax benet will not be on the reconciliation bill as initially proposed. Stay tuned.it could always be added back on, but if a 1031 is in your near future, hopefully you can breath easy for now. From all of us at Real Estate of Winter Park, we look forward to seeing you on the trails, out for dinner, at the grocery store and enjoying the upcoming winter season. We are thankful to know you.