Real estate sales in March were nearly as scarce as the snow with total sales falling 17% versus the prior year’s period to $37.4 million. Transactions were also down, falling 21% to 81 total deals. To highlight how far the market has fallen, at the peak in 2006, March generated 266 transactions worth $108 million. While the full tally for April is not yet in, it would appear the comparisons for residential transactions were not as soft as in March. Unit sales actually rose by from 87 to 88 year over year although dollar volume was down 25%.
While there were a couple of sales over $2 million, the market continues to be dominated by lower end units. In April, nearly 80% of the sales were under $600,000 including 30% that were under $300,000.
Not all the news is bad, however. Inventories have definitely come down substantially. For example, there are currently 211 single family homes for sale in Breckenridge down from 363 at the end of March 2009. Breckenridge condo listings have dropped from 395 in 2009 to 240 currently. We are also seeing a smaller discount from listing prices. At the peak, properties on average were selling more than 10% below list. Earlier this year that had narrowed to 7% and in April it dropped to 5%.