In 2019 we kept a close eye on the market to see where it would go. 2018 and 2017 were fantastic years in the Wood River Valley, so could 2019 keep up or could there be a shift among the different sectors of property buying? In fact, it did and in fact there was. It was a big year for vacant land in the south valley and single family homes valley wide. The condo market remained healthy however not exceeding any expectations set from years past.
Condo inventory didn’t fluctuate all that much in the year over fourth quarter which in my opinion is a good thing considering how much movement we’ve had over the past few years. The price points however are another story and one to be considered. Warm Springs turned out to be a pretty good bang for the buck as the average price dipped nearly 20% from 430k to 346k as did Sun Valley’s down 5% or roughly 30k. This likely speaks to the type of condos being sold and if that’s the case then buyers were presented with great opportunities to update and appreciate. Ketchum’s average price jumped up 35k and Elkhorn up 24k. A good sign for Ketchum as new inventory and units under contract rose as well.
In the single family market, inventory for the most part was down in the fourth quarter over a year ago, however this did not stop sales in some areas by any means. Sales volume in Ketchum and Elkhorn were outstanding! Ketchum up 78% in total dollar volume sold from 37 million to 66.5 million! And Elkhorn up 53% from 28 million to 43 million! Bellevue was strong as well up 26% from 16 to 20 million. What makes this even more notable is that the average price point didn’t go up that significantly unless you are looking at Bellevue who was up 26% or Warm Springs who was down 30% but did have a lot of good values on the market this year.
It was a big fourth quarter for vacant land in the south valley and we’ve known this all along. Hailey’s total volume went up 85% from 5.8m to 11m which is outstanding when you see that the average price point was 209k (a 32% increase). Bellevue took a huge leap with their average sale prices going up 96% from 109k to 215k and thus increasing its total volume sold by 312% from one million to 4.5 million. The important piece to note about Sun Valley’s vacant land market is that it’s inventory of high end land increased quite bit this year with the expansion and subdivision of White Clouds. No doubt this will move in the future however if we can recall from the second and third quarter a lot of high end single family homes moved which tells me that people liked what was already built and didn’t feel the need to build in most cases.
Real estate continues to be a hot topic with the Fed and among communities around the country as the median market prices 86 their way away. I can tell you that this is very much an on the table discussion in the Wood River Valley much like it is around the rest of the country. Over the past year private construction groups have taken this into their own hands and are finding ways to create more long term opportunity in the valley and the work is far from done. In my estimate the next few years are going to have some interesting and strong pushes to develop more median ownership opportunities. And if I’m wrong, at least there will be some nice new and big expensive places available because after all this is Sun Valley.
