Christy and Garth Gillespie work together and approach every transaction with the intention of meeting and exceeding their customers’ expectations. They make sure the only surprises someone receives are good surprises by searching for the unexpected and striving for perfection. Real estate is not their hobby; it is their life and profession. They enjoy working with people from all locations and backgrounds, and after 15 years in Jackson Hole they have helped many discover the joys of living in such a wonderful community. Christy and Garth offer detailed, accurate market analysis, knowledge of local trends and experience in the Jackson Hole real estate market. They share a sincere love and passion of real estate and the details that go along with it, including financing, title work, inspections and everything else that goes along with the journey. Christy and Garth have systems to check and double check every detail. They see each transaction as an opportunity and do not take opportunities for granted. Christy, originally from Naples, Florida, literally grew up in the real estate business. Her parents owned a successful real estate company where she got her start, and success in the business seemed to follow her. Her love for the mountain lifestyle became evident after many family trips to Lake Tahoe and Vail, Colorado. She was lucky enough to find Garth at the University of Denver, where they both graduated with degrees in Business, and they married in Grand Teton Park. Garth joined Christy in real estate 11 years ago and hasn’t looked back since. Garth, who originally hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, loves dealing with people as well as taking marketing to new levels. Christy and Garth share their life with their six-year-old daughter. As a family, they spend their time hiking the Tetons, fishing and camping, and enjoying the outdoors. The Gillespie’s love Jackson’s wonderful sense of community and are grateful to be able live and raise their daughter in such a vibrant community.

Novemeber 2011 has come and gone here in the Jackson Hole Real Estate Market and we witnessed a pretty strong month when looking at the year as a whole.  There were 31 transactions last month — No quite the 13780 properties that sell every day in the United States but Jackson does contribute!  “How’s the Jackson Hole Real Estate Market?” — Well, “We sell a property every day!” 

In a couple of weeks we will be able to show you a graph of how we measure up when comparing Nov. 2010 to Nov. 2011 but in a nutshell, last year we had about $10 million more in sales volume but transactions were 16% lower.  November 2011 saw a median sales price of about $550,000.  This is quite low indicating a stronger low end market.  This is encouraging in my eyes as we are really starting to see the lower end market strengthen.  This of course is being generated by a few short sales, bank sales and realistic sellers.  1/3 of the market in Novemeber sold for under $400,000.

The higher end market saw some good signs too as we saw 2 transactions of about $7 million.  The Jackson market had 9 sales over $1 million. 

Other stats:  3 vacant land transactions, 5 condo transactions in Teton Village, 10 sales in the Town of Jackson.

Please call with any questions or if you need any additional information on the Jackson Hole Real Estate Market — Garth Gillespie, sales associate and partner of the Gillespie Real Estate Team – Jackson Hole Sotheby’s, 307-413-5243 or email at garth.gillespie@jhsir.com. 

The beautiful oranges and yellows of fall are alive in Jackson Hole. The sun is shining, temperatures have cooled off and the tourists have left after a busy summer season. Don’t be fooled! Winter is just around the corner and weather experts are expecting another big winter, much to the delight of local skiers, tourists and the folks at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. While it won’t be an easy task to top last year’s record breaking snow fall of over 700″ (locals are still talking about their epic ski runs from last winter), Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is ready another “La-Nina” snow year.

During these times of economic uncertainty, while many ski resorts are tightening their budgets, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort continues to show its commitment to improving and enhancing the skier experience. Construction is nearly complete on the new Marmot chairlift, which will provide access from the bottom of the Thunder chairlift up to the top of the Gondola and the Coulier Restaurant. JHMR will also increase their snow making capacity and will have an additional cat for more grooming.

Getting to Jackson Hole this winter will be even easy with direct flights from Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago, L.A. and Dallas. A new flight from Newark takes off this season as well. From the airplane window, visitors can get their first glance of the 4,200 feet of vertical available for skiing, along with the famous Grand Teton mountain range. There are several winter lodging / skiing packages available. Click HERE for more information.

Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty has several Teton Village property opportunities from condos to condohotels to single family homes. The Gillespie Real Estate Team can help you find the perfect ski vacation home. Contact us at 307-413-5243 or garth.gillespie@jhsir.com

Every month the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce prepares a “Economic Dashboard” for the Jackson Hole, WY area. This useful report analyzes sales tax revenue, tourism and visitation numbers at Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park, Jackson Hole Airport enplanements, lodging occupancy at local hotels, real estate sales, construction permits and job and rental ads in the Newspaper. All of these numbers, along with their comparison to last years numbers, better helps us understand the economic climate in Jackson Hole.

In summary…….

Sales Tax Income for the Town of Jackson and Teton County for July 2011 was up 11% verses July 2010 and up 23% compared to 2009. (As reported by the Wyoming Department of Revenue).

Tourism & Visitation: Visitation at Yellowstone National Park was down by 6% for August 2011 (vs. Aug 2010) However, year to date visitation was down only 3% compared to 2010.  Visitation at Grand Teton National Park was down 5% for August 2011 (vs. Aug 2010). Year to date visitation was down 7% from year to date 2010.

Jackson Hole Airport Enplanements for August 2011 were only slightly down (0.4%) compared to Augst last year, but down 6% from August 2009.

On the positive side……

Visitor inquiries for August 2011 were up by 16% as compared to August 2010 and up 40% compared to August 2009.  It appears more people are looking into traveling to Jackson Hole.

Lodging rates were pretty similar compared to August 2010. Year to date lodging rates were up 2% from 2010 and 8% from 2009. Not reported in this economic dashboard report is the Fall Arts Festival, in Jackson Hole between September 8 and September 18, which currently has in Town hotels and lodges at full occupancy.

Real Estate Sales (our area of expertise) were up 24% (unit sales) and up 11% (sales volume) for the second quarter of 2011 when comparing to the same quarter in 2010 and up 163% (unit sales) and up 102% (sales volume) from the ‘bottom’ of the market in 2009.

Construction Permits for August 2011 were up by 57% compared to August 2010 and up 7% from January-August verses last year.

For additional information, contact The Gillespie Real Estate Team at 307-739-8056 or garth.gillespie@jhsir.com.

Maybe not exactly but Wyoming ranked 5th for Distaster Resistant real estate locations from the MSN real estate site:

Here’s the link:  http://realestate.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=25641997&GT1=35006 

Here’s what they had to say about Wyoming and Jackson Hole:

Wyoming

Want to live tax-free, but don’t want to deal with hurricanes? Welcome to Wyoming, where individual and corporate taxes are as nonexistent as oceans and gulf currents. Residents may wonder how their state can be considered so safe when it was declared a disaster area in July after a serious bout of flooding. Simple: With only eight major disasters declared since FEMA started keeping tabs back in 1953, the least-populous state (roughly 540,000, or fewer than in Tucson, Ariz., alone) takes calamities including floods, tornadoes and winter storms in stride. With all that cash savings and little worry about impending doom, Wyoming newcomers should feel free to splurge on such homes as Sotheby’s $7 million, four-bedroom, seven-acre spread in Jackson Hole with a stone fireplace, infinity-edge outdoor hot tub, heated concrete floors, six-car garage, guest house and a 30-foot window wall with a view of the Tetons.

All I can say is somehow Utah beat us?  I beg to differ!

The Gillespie Real Estate Team has recently learned about a message alert system called NIXLE through Teton County Emergency Management.  This system allows local emergency services in Teton County to send an immediate email or text message to subscribers to the system.  This enables you to know firsthand what is going on in the valley whether it’s an accident, closure on Teton Pass or an earthquake.

There are two ways you can subscribe to the NIXLE system:

1. Visit www.nixle.com and click “sign in here” in the upper right corner, then click “register now for free”. (Tip: If your actual address won’t register, just use the intersection of N Cache and W Broadway as your address.)

2. Text your zip code to 888777 from your cell phone. If you do this, you will only receive text message alerts. If you follow the weblink in the text message, you can access more detailed information which is included in the email alerts.

NIXLE is a completely free service that costs nothing for subscribers or for taxpayers. We hope you will find this service useful and please feel free to forward this message to friends, family and coworkers who also may wish to receive timely emergency information via text message and/or email.

(Note: Local emergency services to not have access to your information, as it is held on a private and secure server managed by the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System.)

For the first time in resort history, Jackson Hole opened “wall to wall” this weekend.  Christy, Katie and I all hit the slopes on Saturday and did our duty in cutting all the fresh, virgin powder.  It was exciting to say the least to be skiing in November let alone skiing the Hobacks.  The early snowfall has covered the mountain extremely well and we believe there is already more snow on the lower part of the mountain than we ever had last year.

We also spoke with the director of the Four Season Resort who mentioned that booking at the luxury hotel are extremely strong for the winter months.  This should bode well for the real estate market.  Buyers will be ready to swoop in and buy some of the excellent values on the market.  It has been a few years since we saw a strong push of buyers but we are anticipating a great selling season this winter.  If you would like information of the real estate market in Jackson please feel free to contact us. Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty has just finished our biannual Catalogue of Fine Properties so if you would like an copy we’d be thrilled to send you a link.

For more information on the wonderful skiing here in Jackson or for in depth real estate information please contact Garth and Christy Gillespie, associates for Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty at 307-413-5243 visit our website – Jackson Hole Experts.

The Gillespie Real Estate Team at Sotheby’s International Realty in Jackson Hole Wyoming has just updated the “Top Picks of the Week”. Please follow this link: Top Jackson Hole Real Estate Values to see the top values in the Jackson Hole real estate market. Every week or so the Gillespie Real Estate Team will update the Top Picks to showcase great deals in Jackson Hole including townhomes, condos, houses, golf course property, ranch land, ski-in ski-out properties and other great values we see in our real estate market. We also showcase a Listing of the Week, a Sold Property of the Week and a Price Reduction of the Week.

Don’t miss out on learning about the great values in the Jackson Hole Real Estate Market brought to you by The Gillespie Real Estate Team of Garth & Christy Gillespie, Katie Colbert and Don Alsted.

Every month we update our Realty Times Real Estate Newsletter which includes a Jackson Hole Market Update and some National Real Estate Market information. Here is the link but we have also posted our July newsletter market update text below. Feel free to read or visit or newsletter.

July NEWSLETTER

Looking back on the first 2 quarters of sales activity in Jackson Hole we see that there was not a lot of activity. Again – another record low quarter but we have bounced back from the awful 1st Quarter of 2009 where we only had 17 sales. During the 2nd Quarter we witnessed 38 transactions, more than doubling the 1st Quarter results. 22 sales occurred below $1,000,000 and 16 sales occurred above $1,000,000. Of the higher priced properties the highest priced property to sell was listed at $5,625,000 but there was substantial negotiation given. Of the total 38 transactions 4 of them were fractional resort condos and 8 properties did not disclose the closing price.

For current activity, Christy and I have witnessed a surge in activity. The market is not on fire by any means but again we are starting to see some activity that indicates the market has some life. The most interesting aspect of the current activity has been the variety of properties going under contract.

There are currently 16 “Under Contract” residential properties which does NOT include pre construction projects (Terra, Pine Glades, 199 Pearl) or vacant land. There are 8 properties under $1,000,000 and 8 properties over $1,000,000. There are only 3 condos verse 13 single family homes. In the past week, the most exciting activity we witnessed was a property north of town listed for $5,150,000 go under contract (both sides of the transaction are being represented by Sotheby’s International Realty – Jackson Hole). There are currently 4 properties under contract listed for more than $4.8 million. There are 5 under contract vacant land parcels.

As for Active Listings….there are 571 Residential Properties for sale in Jackson Hole and 214 Vacant Land Parcels for sale in Jackson Hole!

If you have time – check out our Top Real Estate Picks in Jackson Hole located at JacksonHoleExperts.com.

We hope this helps you understand the current market activity in Jackson Hole. If you would like us to expand our thoughts or if you have any additional questions please email or call the JacksonHoleExperts – 877-739-8056.

Make sure you check out www.jacksonholeexperts.com . We have a lot of great new listings and have just updated our extremely popular Top Picks Page. Christy and I select great values on the market every few weeks and update them on the Top Pick page. Thanks for reading and if you would like additional information of the Jackson Hole market please call us toll free at 877-739-8056. We also love referrals so if you have anyone interested in Jackson Hole real estate or thinking about listing please let them know about us!

Beautiful South Jackson Hole

The Top Real Estate Picks of the Week in Jackson Hole is a selection of properties Christy and I feel are well priced for our market and can be considered a Top Pick of the Week. We currently list 3 properties.

In new exciting news the Jackson Hole Experts contracted with our wonderful website designer to create the “Jackson Hole Real Estate Power Rankings”. Here we will start to rank the Top Ten Real Estate deals in Jackson Hole. This is going to be an exciting challenge as we have the opportunity to move properties up and down the list as new listings come aboard, current listings have price reductions or the real estate market changes in certain locations. Stay tuned as we will be getting the Jackson Hole Real Estate Power Rankings online in the next few weeks.

The current market is showing some signs of activity. Yesterday at the Sotheby’s International Realty – Jackson Hole Brokerage – Wednesday morning meeting multiple properties were announced as “pending-under contract”. The list included a condo at the Aspen’s, a vacant lot in the Jackson Hole exclusive neighborhood of Indian Springs and a small, older home in the Town of Jackson. This is great to hear!

For more information on Jackson Hole Real Estate please contact the Jackson Hole Experts toll free at 877-739-8056 or visit our website.