The final, final statistics are not quite finished but Sotheby’s International Realty Jackson Hole Brokerage has compiled the final sales numbers from the Teton Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service for 2009.  The past year will go down as one of the most difficult real estate years in history.  With financing difficult to find and more importantly a complete lack of buyer interest, sales across the entire spectrum slowed t a crawl.

The year did not start out well at all with only 20 transactions in the first quarter!  The second quarter improved a little with 63 transactions.  Finally during the last half of the year we started to see some activity market wide and had a total of 143 deals take place.  The totals are incredible when compared to the previous few years.  Unit volume declined 28% vs. 2008 and 65% vs. 2007.  Sales volume was even worse being 52% lower than 2008 and 71% lower than in 2007!

From Garth and Christy’s perspective the Jackson Hole market has a ways to go before we see any type of recovery.  There are chunks of the market that have not realized the decline in sales and prices and have refused to adjust with the current market.  There are 53 active listings between $2 and $3 million with only 1 pending sale in this price range.  The low range in the market $350,000 and below has barely adjusted which is resulting in a completely stalled market. 

What does this mean?  I will be updating the blog in the next few weeks and I’ll try to lay the frame work for recovery.  We have seen some motivated sellers which have resulted in sales so we are hoping sellers and the real estate community is starting to grasp the severity of the declining market.  The only way we recover is for the market to reflect the 30% to 40% decline and adjust the prices accordingly.

Jackson Hole is still a fantastic community.  It offers good schools, a top notch hospital, incredible arts and social environment, fabulous resturants and that small town charm many people desire.  Wyoming still offers incredible tax savings, abundant wildlife, great ski resorts and ample space for recreation.  These aspects are still here so we see a lot of opportunity for Jackson and the real estate market to rebound.

Stay tuned for additional information and thank you for visiting the Jackson Hole Experts Blog provided by Garth and Christy Gillespie.

The Jackson Hole Experts – Christy and Garth Gillespie – have just updated our Top Picks of the Week! Every other week the Jackson Hole Experts update our Top Picks with the Best New Jackson Hole Listing, the Most Notable Closed Jackson Hole Transaction and the Best Jackson Price Reduction on a Listing. At the bottom of that page we have a link that takes you to our Top Picks of the Week.

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.

Christy and I just got out of our Sotheby’s International Realty morning meeting and have some new statistics to share with all of you. Today’s meeting was not as encouraging as last weeks when we saw 5 new pending transactions – this week we announced just 1 (vacant lot in Willowbrook under contract).

The Jackson Hole Experts have been working our tails off. Last week we listed 3 more properties. We are so grateful to the many sellers out there that have confidence in our marketing program. We believe that the combination of Christy and Garth Gillespie and Sotheby’s International Realty is hard beat and we wake up every day trying to do our best. We look for new, creative marketing ideas, we make sure we have updated photography, we network with the right people….it is on going and effective.

The May 31, 2009 update sums up the market quite well — 43 transaction since January 1st! Yep – 43… The previous low was 2008 with only 127 closings and before that it was 2003 with 186 closings already. This is a shocking number! Jackson Hole Real estste sales volume is half ($66.5 million) of what it was in 2003 ($122 million). The unit volume peaked in 2005 and 2009 unit sales are down 85% from that level. Sales volume peaked in 2007 and 2009 volume so far is down 79% vs. 2007. Days on market is just about irrelevant with so few deals. Prices are hard to fine tune into a pattern but 20% off the high selling prices seems to be a number we are seeing quite a bit. That is about all we can say about the current/past market.

Where do we go from here? An interesting marketing tool that Sotheby’s of Jackson Hole has started in the past 2 months seems to be working. Here at Sotheby’s we have a pricing committee which is comprised of 12 working real estate agents. The pricing committee talks about the market and the current listings at Sotheby’s. They discuss current trends and closings that have occured during the past few months. They also evaluate Sotheby’s current listings on the market. They then select the best values on the market. In turn Sotheby’s uses the top section of our advertising to highlight these exceptionally priced properties. During the past 2 months – 50% of the Sotheby’s listings that have sold have come from this list! Currently 50% of the under contract properties Sotheby’s has listed came from the “priced great” list. Christy and I are meeting with seller’s weekly and we are doing our best to assist them in understanding the market — we are advising our seller’s to make the list with our original listing price.

For details on what makes listing homes or land with Christy and Garth Gillespie and Sotheby’s International Realty different than any other “agency” or “associates” in Jackson Hole – call us toll free at 877-739-8056 or on our cell at 307-413-5243. We are very excited to be busy and we are working very hard to increase transactions in this difficult market.