Aspen Market

Hotels in Snowmass Village saw slightly more business in March over last year, thanks largely to a flurry of last-minute bookings made after some significant snowstorms. Snowmass occupancy in March came in at 58.6 percent, a 4.2 percent increase from last year, according to a report by the Mountain Travel Research Program. It didn’t look that way before the month, though.

“We were coming in almost dead flat with last March,” said Bill Tomcich, president of reservations agency Stay Aspen Snowmass.  March had a long way to go, but a dramatic change in the ski conditions got the phones ringing. March bookings made that same month were up 20 percent over last year, helping the numbers to rise above.

Snowmass hotels saw a strong finish in April with close to 50 percent occupancy the first half of the month, double the rate that Snowmass saw in the same period last year.  Most of the visitors were in town for the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic the first week of April and the Mountain Travel Symposium the second.  “And last year we had Easter in April,” Tomcich said. “That really illustrates the power of those two groups.”

The properties almost sold out during the winter sports clinic and Mountain Travel Symposium, he said. All of the symposium business events were in the Westin Snowmass Conference Center.  “That quite honestly took us over the top,” Johnson said. “We’re hoping that momentum continues through the summer season.”

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The White River National Forest is ready to move forward with the sales process for a portion of its Aspen West End property, in order to finance a redevelopment of the aging visitor center at the S-curves.

Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams published a notice last week approving the conveyance of an acre at the northwest corner of the 3-acre property. The for-sale portion would be split into five lots of about 6,000 square feet, each suitable for single-family homes.  “I’m finally in the real estate business,” Fitzwilliams joked.

The notice, published April 11, kicks off a 45-day period during which the Forest Service’s decision to sell the property can be appealed to officials in Washington D.C. If no appeal is filed, Fitzwilliams said he hopes the marketing and sale of the property, conducted through the Government Services Administration, will go forward this summer. A Forest Service press release issued Thursday said the Aspen property is the  No. 1 priority for the White River National Forest’s conveyance program.

The Forest Service hasn’t settled on the method it will use to sell the property, Fitzwilliams said, although an online or live auction is being considered. He said  White River staff is looking to other instances where the Forest Service has sold property in high-end real estate markets, such as Sedona, Ariz., and the Lake Tahoe region in California and Nevada, for ideas.

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Teton County’s apartment rental market constricted to a point last year that hasn’t been seen since 2008.  Last year, the vacancy rate fluctuated between 1 percent and 1.6 percent, according to a new report published by the state Community Development Authority. In 2011, that rate was hovering around 10 percent.

Managers at two large apartment complexes in Jackson said they’ve seen their vacancy rates drop gradually over the last year.  “It seems like everything is coming back,” said Aspen Meadows Apartments property manager Sean Ryan.

Aspen Meadows increased its rent for a one-bedroom apartment, albeit slightly, in response to growing demand. A one-bedroom, deluxe apartment is going for $880 per month. Last year, the complex charged $825. The occupancy rate at Blair Apartments increased to 83 percent. During the same time last year, it was at 70 percent.

The county’s vacancy rate was the lowest in the state at the end of 2012. The state average was 4.2 percent, although central Wyoming communities had an average rate of 1.9 percent. Landlords in the southeastern corner of the state reported a vacancy rate of 2.7 percent. The vacancy rate survey comes in a bundle of economic data that seems to show that the valley’s economy is slowly on the mend.

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Vacant land for single-family homes in the Aspen area was the first segment of the real estate market to get smacked by the recession, and it’s been one of the slow areas to recovery, but it’s finally turning around, according to sales data.

Twenty-six vacant lots in Aspen and surrounding neighborhoods sold in 2012, far exceeding any of the prior four years, according to an analysis by Andrew Ernemann, of B.J. Adams and Co. Only 11 vacant lots sold in the same geographic area in 2011.  The level reached last year essentially matched the pre-recession level of 25 lots sold in 2007, Ernemann’s report showed.

He said his personal experience and chats with other real estate agents indicate that most of the sales are to end users — people who want to build and live in the homes. There are also signs of some interest from investors, he said. Investors are typically spec builders who invest the money in land and construction on the assumption the houses will sell. Spec building disappeared, for the most part, when the recession struck the Roaring Fork Valley in late 2008.

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The fantastic finale to 2012 in the Pitkin County real estate market has given way to a sluggish start in 2013. The total dollar volume of all real estate sales in January was down $15.15 million, or 15 percent, from January 2012, according to deeds filed with the Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.  The sales slump continued in February, with dollar volume down another $9.1 million, or 20 percent, according to deeds filed.  For the two months combined, the market is down $24.25 million, or 17 percent.

Realtors said Friday that the surge in late 2012 and the slump in early 2013 are connected. A flurry of activity in the fourth quarter of 2012 was driven by changes in the capital-gains tax laws. Sales that would have been completed in January and February of this year were fast tracked in December.  “Buyers and sellers were doing back flips to get closings done in the last days,” said Carrie Wells, a leading real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Mason and Morse Real Estate in Aspen. Work in December for real estate agents, title insurance companies and real estate attorneys was like “running a marathon,” she said.

Wells said she represented the buyers in one transaction in which an offer was made for a home on Christmas Eve with a closing on Dec. 27. The buyers knew they would benefit from a discount, so they agreed to a deal that skipped many of the due-diligence steps, and they allowed the sellers to remain in the property for six months, she said. Buyers aren’t willing to jump through hoops like that now, and sellers don’t have the incentive to reach an agreement because of higher taxes, Wells said. Therefore, activity has sagged.

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The real estate market in Pitkin County has so far seen more transactions but fewer dollars than last year.  April saw the strongest showing this year both in terms of total dollar volume — nearly $111.27 million — and transactions — 72. Those are increases of 12 percent and 12.5 percent over last year, respectively.

But year to date, dollars total $302,616,418 — a decrease of 12.5 percent from same period last year, according to the latest Land Title Guarantee Company market analysis that Tammy Sommerfeld sent out to brokers.  Year to date, transactions total 240, an increase of 13 percent from same period last year, the report shows.

For the month, Aspen posted 30 transactions ($71.5 million), Snowmass Village posted 23 transactions ($23 million), there were 12 fractional transactions ($3.4 million), Basalt posted four sales ($1.3 million), Old Snowmass posted two transactions ($9 million), and Woody Creek posted one transaction ($3.15 million).  There were 13 bank sales recorded in the county for May totaling $10.5 million, which accounted for 18 percent of the transactions and 9 percent of the dollars.  Year to date, there have been 44 bank sales recorded in the county, totaling $27.6 million, which accounted for 18 percent of the transactions and 9 percent of the dollars.

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