We hear horror stories galore about the condition of the economy. The last few weeks have capped off a really crazy year of bad news. Oddly enough, Aspen is still proving to buck the trends and provide some good news. The real estate market has certainly been relatively soft, compared with record high sales tax revenues last summer. But even in real estate the news isn’t all bad.
One of the methods of comparing real estate appreciation is to analyze a key ratio that provides the closest thing to a constant over time – sales price per square foot of living space. The fact that there have been a number of newly constructed homes sold recently does skew this comparison somewhat, but not entirely. During the 12 months from October through September for the past 3 years, the price/sq ft of single family homes sold in Aspen has increased from $1093 in 05-06, to $1292 in 06-07, to $1318 this last year. This represents a percentage increase of 18.1%, 18.2% and 2% respectively. The 2% is clearly well off the earlier trend, but is still an increase. Even the past 6 month period, with an average of $1370, slightly improves the view over the full 12 months and represents a 5.9% increase over the prior year.
Condominiums show an even greater appreciation with 12%, 31% and 14.5% for the full years and 18.1% for the past 6 months over the year prior. This puts the average price/sq ft of an Aspen condominium at $1563.
The bad news is that there have been significantly fewer deals, only 61 homes and 64 condos against 116 and 155 last year and 138 and 209 the year before. So, half as many deals, but the prices are continuing to hold more solidly than has been the perception.
- Tom Leddy, Associate Broker
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