Another strong month for transactions and sales volume in Jackson Hole real estate market

The Colbert Real Estate Report

Monthly Market Update for October 2015

Jackson Hole, WY

Summary – Sept 2015:

53:: Total residential sale transactions (similar to Aug’s high)
$100,500,000 :: Total residential sales volume including unreported sale prices
$1,900,000:: Average sales price of reported and unreported sales
96% :: Ratio of sales price to list price (consistent for past 5 months)
155 :: Average days on market prior to selling (back down after last month’s spike)

What it means: September real estate sales followed in August’s footsteps, recording a second straight month of robust transaction levels. Additionally, sales volume in September had another strong performance topping $100 million for the second month in a row (including reported and non-reported sales prices – see note below). As a point of reference, we haven’t seen total sales volume top $100 million since October 2013 and haven’t seen numbers even close to these since last fall (Sept & Oct 2014 had total sales volumes of just over $90 million each). It is typical for the fall months, mainly Sept and Oct, to put up strong numbers as they account for deals that came together during the busy summer selling season (i.e. if you put a property under contract in Aug, you will most likely close in Sept or Oct). I also think the high September sales transaction and volume are also an indication of increasing motivation of sellers as we approach the end of summer. As an illustration, we saw several price reductions last month as many Sellers hope to sell their properties before winter. In conjunction with the higher than usual sales volume, the average sales price (again including both reported and unreported sales) remained much higher than usual at just under $2 million. The average days a property sits on the market before selling dropped down again after a small increase in August. Properties that are well priced and/or in high demand continue to sell very quickly and close to asking price. In particular, 22 of the sales in September closed within 3 months of being listed. Additionally, nearly 20% of all sales occurring in September closed at or above the listing price.

Note that in previous reports, I separately tracked sales that were reported to the MLS and transactions where the sales price was withheld from the MLS. Lately, there have been several significant sales each month that are not reported to the MLS. Given that these undisclosed sales are a valuable component in tracking the overall market trends, going forward, I will be reporting the COMBINED total sales volume and average sales prices, including those sales reported to the MLS and making an estimate for sale prices not reported to the MLS.