#Keystone #Colorado
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| Summit Daily |
Finding one for sale might be trickier than in previous years, but Keystone's condos are absolutely burning up Summit County's real estate market, according to the Summit County Assessor's Office.
On Tuesday, county assessor Beverly Breakstone explained that her office is nearing the end of its data collection for the 2019 property reappraisals, a process that happens every two years, with the latest set of data running through the end of June.
Breakstone said 470 condos have sold in Keystone over the last 22 months, and looking at the sales, her office is predicting Keystone condos will increase in value about 40 percent over the two-year data period.
Compare that to single-family homes, up about 21 percent during the same timeframe, and it shows just how well Keystone condos are doing within a real estate market that's defined by a lack of inventory and continues to set records.
How limited is the inventory for condos in Keystone?
Craig Walsh, a broker associate with local real estate firm Slifer Smith & Frampton, said the available inventory is down to 1-3 percent of all the units that have been built in the area.
"That's just unheard of," he said. "In the 25 years I've been here, I've never seen inventory levels so low."
Walsh has also noticed Keystone condos may have hit a price plateau the last few months, but with sellers continuing to push the envelope, and with more inventory coming onto the market, it's hard for him to know exactly what will happen this summer, as local real estate agents log about 60 percent of their annual sales in July and August, he said.
While Walsh hesitates to make too strong of a forecast about exactly what the future will hold, he still thinks "it's still a good time to buy" property here and doesn't see the local real estate market going down anytime soon, even if the price plateau on Keystone condos persists.
The assessor's office analyses into six economic areas across Summit County, and the increase in property values regarding condos was roughly 32 percent across the board, Breakstone said.
Breaking down those six areas, she said condos are up 22 percent in Frisco; 26 percent in Copper; 31 percent in Silverthorne, Wildernest and Dillon; 34 percent in the Dillon Valley and 32 percent in Breckenridge.
All of those are strong clips of growth, but none are nearly as dramatic as the 40 percent spike in Keystone, said Breakstone, who thinks it's probably the most surprising tidbit to emerge from the 2019 reappraisal process so far.
"Our data is just screaming for Keystone right now, and I'm glad to see it," she said, explaining that Keystone was one of the places in Summit County hardest hit by the recession.
"The thing about Keystone is the values dropped in 2008, and it took them forever to start recovering," she said. "But they have finally done it."
While the spike in property values is a nice boost, Breakstone noted, it's also somewhat of a mixed blessing because with rising values come higher taxes.
"That's always the double edge," she said, "but those (property owners) should be happy because it's been a while since they've seen price increases like this."
