Pagosa Springs Real Estate Newsletter, December 2011

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We sure did. I have an extra five pounds to prove it. My wife, Laurie, and I spent five days in Denver visiting my son and his wife and other relatives. We hit a movie, a play, and Black Friday to boot. The weather for traveling was good both here and there.

It’s beginning to snow lightly now. This is good for the ski area, which has been open since early October – very good for the local economy. I called around to most of the hotels as well as the Chamber to see how business was over the holiday. Most did very well. Christmas in Pagosa starts this weekend, which is an event that encourages everyone to shop locally. There are other holiday festivities going on as well. You can visit PagosaChamber.com for details.

As far as the real estate market goes, business continues to be good with home sales up 37% compared to last year, and overall sales up 27%. Home inventory is down 20%. Repo numbers are also going down. As of December 2nd, there are 45 repossessed homes on the market, and 15 of them are under contract. This means there are only 30 residential repos available today. Repo homes are about 10% of the current inventory. The most surprising number of all the stats this month is this: out of 31 homes under contract right now, 15 are bank repos. The good news is the sooner they go away, the more quickly we will see a rebound in prices. There are still a bunch of repos coming down the pipeline, but they are being gobbled up fast. If you are a buyer sitting on the sidelines waiting for that great deal, you better hurry, especially if you want to take advantage of the unbelievably low interest rates hovering around 4%!

I send out a spreadsheet once a week via email showing all the repo properties in the county. If you would like to receive the list, just let me know. You can also see these properties on my website, ISellPagosa.com. Another great feature I have on the website is the ability to see all the newly-listed properties. You get access to all the fresh meat as it comes on the market.

So long for now! I hope you and your family have a great Holiday. It’s good to hear a lot of our troops will be home soon. Now if Congress would give us a Christmas present called “cooperation,” that would be great!


Lee Riley
GRI, CRS
2011 & 2014 Realtor of the Year
Phone (970) 731-4065
Fax (970) 731-4068
Cell (970) 946-3856
Email: [email protected]