Residential Sales Dominate The Real Estate Market

Per the pie chart below, note the difference in residential sales as compared to land and commercial.  Residential sales in La Plata county account for 82.1% of all transactions, up from 71.1% in 2005.  The trend that is even more amazing is in 1994, the residential percentage of market was 43% and land sales were 53.8%!  This is a huge change of market, reflecting differences in consumer behavior.

Land sales have been depressed by the great recession, and dropped to a low of 13.2% of overall sales, and at current level of about 15%.   Again, this is from the highs in the market in 1994 of 53.8%.  Currently, we are experiencing growth in land sales as there is higher demand for new housing, spurred by low inventory levels of homes on the market.

Commercial transaction have dropped to 3% of sales in 2013, from 3.7% in 2005, but it has stayed consistent with 1994, when 3% of the market was commercial.  Commerial sales will increase with population growth, economic vitality, and the need for new and additional services.

Bob Allen of Allen and Associates is a highly respected real estate consultant and appraiser in the Durango area, and he has studied the real estate market in La Plata County for decades, and has provided the 1990's data for this article.  The pie chart data is from CREN, the regional MLS provider in our area.

According to Bob, his perspective is: “In the 90’s, many folks came here to live this lifestyle, were willing to sacrifice much to live this lifestyle, and they were idealistic.  They wanted to build their idea of a dream home on dream property. Today, many folks come here to live this lifestyle but they want to do it NOW rather than wasting time buying land, designing a home, building a home, etc. – they don’t have that much time – they’ve spent the last 30-40 years of their life in urban America and now realize that may not have been the right choice so they don’t want to waste any more time with superfluous dream stuff. These folks are willing to buy homes that may not fit them perfectly.  They’ll remodel but they want to start to play NOW!  They don’t have much time left.”