Vail real estate sales increase | Katonah Real Estate

EAGLE COUNTY — The county’s real estate market is something of a mixed bag this year. Total sales are up, but average sale prices are down. But one sector of the market is keeping brokers and mortgage bankers hoping.

“If you’re selling a home for $300,000 or less, you’re going to get multiple offers,” Prudential Colorado Properties broker Mallie Kingston said.

Kingston said the activity in the lower end of the market is driven by several factors, but the most important is as old as Adam Smith: There’s a lot of demand and not much supply.

As a result, prices on the lower end of the for-sale market have started to show more strength, Kingston said.

Julie Bergsten, a vice president at Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate, said the multiple-offer syndrome may stretch a bit farther up-market. She said she’s seeing homes priced at $500,000 or less attracting a lot of attention, too.

Most of the sales in the county have historically been for $500,000 or less, with a few sales of high-end properties building up the average prices. That was the case in March, according to the most recent data from Land Title Guarantee Co.

Almost half of the 120 sales in March were for $500,000 or less, according to the monthly report. Adding homes of $1 million or less to the mix brings the total to 75 percent of all transactions.

But, Bergsten said, buyers of very expensive homes are “on the sidelines” right now. According to Slifer Smith & Frampton’s data, the company recorded 22 “written deals” for property priced at $3 million or more in the first quarter of 2012. In the first quarter of this year, only eight such deals were made.

But there’s no lack of buyers in the lower end of the market. Sarah Jardis, president of Central Rockies Mortgage, said she’s seeing a number of first-time buyers, including nurses, teachers and other young professionals. Those people are taking advantage of historically low interest rates. And, at least for some buyers, programs are available to loan 100 percent of a home’s purchase price.

Unlike the go-go days in the middle of the last decade, though, borrowers have to do more than register a pulse.

Eagle County real estate sales increase | VailDaily.com