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)
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