Annual 2013 Sun Valley Windermere Market Update

The decline in sales at the bottom end of the market is easy to explain. For homes and condos priced under $150,000, the number of sales fell from 203 in 2012 to 110 in 2013. The reason for that precipitous drop is that there were simply far fewer properties listed for sale under $150,000, unlike 2012 when the inventory of inexpensive homes and bank-owned properties was quite high.

The biggest gain in home prices occurred in the south valley, which had been hard hit by the Great Recession. For the year the median sales price of single family homes in Hailey and Bellevue rose 14 percent above the levels recorded in 2012. In the resort market of Ketchum and Sun Valley, median sales price of single family homes was up seven percent in the resort condo market, 183 sales were recorded in 2013, compared to 199 a year earlier. While the volume of sales in the condo market was down slightly, the average sold price was $297 per square foot. That’s a 21 percent increase from when the condo market hit bottom is 2012 at $245 a square foot, but still well off the peak set in 2007 when the average selling price of resort area units was $523 a square foot. For newer and larger condos listed for sale above $500,000, the annual gain in price per square foot was less. These units sold for 9 percent more in 2013, according to the Sun Valley Board of Realtor database.

At the top of the market, the sale of luxury properties listed for sale above $2 million declined significantly in 2013. There were 14 such sales in 2013, compared to 36 in 2012. At the same time, the number of Blaine County real estate sales between $1 million to $2 million climbed nearly 25 percent in 2013. As of mid-January 2014, there were five individual properties with list prices in excess of $3 million in escrow and set to close during the first quarter of this year. These five transactions will total over $20 million in sold volume.