Autumn is beautiful in Pagosa. Nature’s main artist showed up a couple of weeks ago and His brush has done a splendid job. The colors are spectacular and probably at their peak this week.
The Town of Pagosa Springs continues to be busy. The first batch of hunters, those who use black powder or archery, have come and gone. Rifle season will start on October 15 and will run for about a month over the course of three separate seasons. Last weekend we had another festival going on: the Mountain Chile Cha Cha. This annual event is a great party, featuring lots of good music, three different trail running races, and the Patty Aragon Green Chile Cook-Off.
The most visible activity downtown is the new configuration of our traffic lanes. We now have four lanes on Putt Hill where before we only had three. They have added an extra lane on the downhill side near the Elementary School. This has been the location of our largest congestion problem in recent years. There are also several new turn lanes and bike lanes around town. It’s a little too early to see how this will all work, but I am very optimistic this is a good plan.
Regarding the traffic study planning for a new bridge on 5th Street, we have no new information at this time. They were still working on the traffic study to see if it’s a worthwhile project going forward. We’ll let you know when we have more to report.
Now for the latest real estate news. The sales are down slightly for September, but I believe this is a temporary aberration. We have a huge number of pending sales right now, and once these sales close, we should have some very large numbers at the end of the year. Last year it seemed like a lot of deals closed a little earlier than usual, and this year it looks like a whole bunch are going to close late. I expect that it will all come out in the wash.
The inventory is falling dramatically across the board, but especially in the residential and condo market. A number of local builders have taken notice, and they are building spec homes priced at $300,000 or less. These properties are being snapped up very quickly as soon as construction is complete. The numbers for the new housing permits as of 9/30/16 are 92; compared to 69 new housing permits for last year (9/30/15).
The economy is looking strong both nationally and locally, and I’m very optimistic that the market will continue to improve.
GRI, CRS
2011 & 2014 Realtor of the Year
Phone (970) 731-4065
Fax (970) 731-4068
Cell (970) 946-3856
Email: [email protected]
