More and more frequently, I am hearing owners, buyers, sellers and Realtors (who frankly should know better!) make comments such as “in a market like this…” or “it’s just not the same…” or whatever… often stated with a look of fear in their eyes. To which my only response is “What do you mean?”
Fact… our year-to-date numbers are down from 2007. Fact… what most people forget is how quickly we came out of the gates in 2007, and how strong sales were over the first few months of the year. Thus, comparing year-to-year sales numbers is a bit off base. If you take a more prudent, long-term look at our market, going back more than just twelve months, you will note that we are not that far off the mark from historical trends. This is true not only in the Vail Valley, but also in Aspen and many other luxury resort markets. This is especially true of the high-end, luxury niche of our market.
What folks also forget is that, given all the uncertainties out there with the economy, Wall Street, petroleum prices, lenders, etc., it is amazing that we are proving to be as resilient as we are! This should come as no surprise, however. Looking back over the past twenty years, we have successfully ridden through several “storms” that many pundits had predicted would derail our real estate market. Whether “Black Monday” in 1987… the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990… the Asian financial crises in 1997… the tech market meltdown in 2000… the September 11 attacks… the ongoing rash of accounting/corporate scandals… or the outbreak of the second Iraq war, each of these events could have reasonably been expected to have a negative impact on Vail Valley real estate. Yet the overall trend in our market for the past twenty years has been one of strong activity and growth.
The bottom line is that THIS IS PERHAPS THE BEST TIME IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS TO BUY! Historically, these pauses in our market present buyers with excellent inventory, more negotiable sellers who are anxious to make a deal, and less competition from other buyers who might be after the same property. These periods of calm, typically lasting a year or two, are also invariably followed by periods of strong run-ups in sales, and prices.
Personally, I am finding that Sellers are becoming more nervous about all of the uncertainty, and are not nearly as bullish when negotiating pricing and the terms of a deal. This represents a dramatic shift from the seller’s market we have experienced to a neutral, or even a buyer’s market for the first time in years. Astute buyers with experience in the Vail Valley know that this is the time to buy!
