Welcome

It's been a little over a month and a half since we opened a real estate brokerage two miles from the entrance to Durango Mountain Resort and in the heart of Durango's resort community. My partner Kris Daly and I left Durango Mountain Realty, the real estate arm of Durango Mountain Resort, to form a partnership with The Wells Group, Durango's premier market leader in real estate. The result is The Wells Group Mountain and Resort Brokerage (http://www.wellsgroupmountainresort.com/).

We are located in the Needes Country Square in an office formerly operated by Needles Real Estate. Our simple mission is to be the leader and independent source for real estate services in Durango's resort area and throughout southwest Colorado. Kris has over fifteen years of experience in this market as a broker with both Durango Mountain Realty and Needles Real Estate. I was the Director of Sales for Durango Mountain Realty's new base area redevelopment, Purgatory Lodge, and a broker with Durango Mountain Realty for over five years. Between us we are the most productive Realtors working in the resort area with more transactions and dollar volume of transactions than any other organization, and we rank consistently at the top of all brokers in the entire region.

Even with that going for us, it seemed a little daffy, even to us, to open a real estate brokerage on the heels of one of our country's most difficult recessions and one that really started with a melt-down in the real estate markets. Regardless, we felt there was an unfulfilled need in the market to provide buyers and sellers with an independent resource and unbiased delivery of real estate services and analysis. As Durango Mountain Resort has grown and developed its successful community and mountain master plans, their real estate services became almost solely focused on promoting in-house new developer offerings. It's a natural progression in a master planned community, but as the community grew at a rapid pace there was no real estate organization stepping up in earnest to serve the entirety of this market, which lies 25 miles beyond the town of Durango.....until now.

Was there a need? Well, if the last month and a half is any indication, we may be onto something. I came into this brokerage with very few listings. My previous position would not afford time to manage any but those with my personal clients and customers. Kris had a decent share of the market in listings on day one, but had not been actively pursuing new listings at Durango Mountain Realty because of the emphasis on developer projects and the lack of support given listings there.

It's been a busy month, to say the very least. Our office now has 53 independent listings compared to Durango Mountain Realty's 32 listings that aren't in-house developers. We are two brokers to Durango Mountain Realty's four. Our market share in independent listings after only a little more than a month looks like the chart below (we're in blue).

What about buyers? We've written six offers and put three deals under contract since we opened (pending a fourth as I type). Our chief competitor has no new buyer contracts to our knowledge during this time.

But enough of that. We'll publish our stats from time to time, and eventually post them regularly on our website, but our job here isn't to make ourselves David to their Goliath. We like and respect our former company and their successes are ultimately ours. As the resort prospers, so goes the community. We just wanted you to know two things:

1. We're here to provide the highest level of service offered in this area for your listing and buying decisions .

2. We're not only going to lead out of the gate, we intend to lead all the way to the finish.

And the only finish worth counting is a sale so successful that our buyers and sellers refer us to their friends, family and associates.

In my previous blog post I provided some market analysis you may want to investigate if you haven't read it already. The Durango Area Association of Realtor's issued their second quarter stats, and we can finally say it's a buyer's market, something we haven't seen in Durango in the last fifteen years, or more. We don't think we'll see it very long. The leading indicators we keep looking at show signs of recoveries in just about every sector that informs our local real estate market. We would cautiously estimate that there's a six to twelve month window where the buyer's market will prevail, perhaps more in certain market sectors (land most notably). Building permits are at historic lows in our county and while inventories have climbed, a small market like ours has a tendency to recover quickly without active construction growth.

The purpose of this blog will be to provide a continuous independent source of information on our local market and events in Durango, Colorado, as well as its resort communities. We'll try to keep the advertisement content to a minimum and provide valuable and insightful information that will be useful to anyone with an interest in property in this area. Drop us a line and let us know what you like and what you don't. Ask us questions and suggest topics for future postings. Even if you just need a good place to go fishing or a nice trail to hike on, we're here to help. Also, we'll soon have a podcast on our site with similar relevant information if you'd prefer to listen to our regular reports.

Thanks for your support.

Until next time.... Chris and Kris (we'll answer to either one)

Durango Market 2nd Quarter Statistical Update

• The Durango Area Association of Realtors (DAAR) recently released their second quarter statistics. I’ve posted a link to their report below.
  
  http://www.durangorealtor.com/images/Statistics/2ndQtrStat2009.pdf
  
  If you have interest in or already own real estate in Durango, you may want to save this link for the future. That way you can check out the market as much as you like and make your own interpretations.
  
  Here are some things I noticed in looking at these numbers:
  
• DAAR doesn’t have a great way to include fractional sales in their general stats, so both 2008 and 2009 statistics are missing this significant component of the resort market in their general analysis. At the end of 2008 there were more sales in the fractional condominiums, thanks to about $16 million in closings at the new Purgatory Lodge, then in all other categories in the resort market. Similarly, in 2009, there have been seven sales that aren’t counted in the general numbers you see here. In a small market, that’s a big deal, and those numbers would impact the final stats considerably were they to be included.
  
• If you were waiting for the market in Durango to soften or go down, your wait is over. Numbers of sales are off as much as 50% in some categories, and down in all. Though the resort area has proven more resilient then other parts of our market, especially if you include fractional sales, it too is now experiencing the results of more motivated sellers who are responding to more reluctant buyers.
  
• Sales in single-family homes in the resort area are at an insignificant number to draw price conclusions, but certainly the lack of sales and corresponding rise in inventories make for some great buying opportunities in this segment among others.
  These statistics are very similar to the mid-late 80’s in the Durango market. That was the last timeframe that people really look back on here with the thought of, “I wish I would have bought then,” or conversely the stories of their buying brilliance. You can see from the statistics that the slowdown really began here in 2006, though the Durango market in many categories has either continued to remain stable or grow since then. If you’re a buyer, opportunity is knocking. Sellers should probably stay put if they can. Most inventory categories are not vast given the numbers in a small market, and a market recovery, which may be imminent given the performance of markets that tend to lead ours, will in many cases eat up the good deals pretty quickly, and permit pricing to reflect more normalized circumstances.
  
  Statistics are always open to interpretation. I’d be happy to discuss my thoughts with you more. My partner Kris and I have consistently led the resort market in numbers and dollar volume of sales and we were glad to contribute those to the success of Durango Mountain Realty in the last two quarters and prior to then. Our new brokerage is focused on providing you with knowledgeable independent analysis for buyers and sellers throughout the resort and greater Durango area, and we’re now part of the brokerage with the largest market share and exposure of any real estate brokerage in southwestern Colorado. For information on The Wells Group share of the market and organization, you may want to visit http://www.wellsgroupdurango.com/whywells.asp.
  
  Let us know how we can help.
  
  Best regards,
  Chris