Wow what a great year so far. Summer has finally arrived. The flowers are in full bloom, and Lake Dillon is almost full. By the 4 of July with the current runoff it should be at capacity. I can't wait to see all the sail boats out on the lake for this year's regatta. It should be a blast.

The realignment of the gondola in Keystone is on track and should be ready in time for the 2008-2009 ski season. I have seen some of the future development plans and it looks to be ambitious. This summer there may be some investment opportunities available in older units that will be directly impacted by the new Gondola. The move looks to add additional ski in/out capacity to some of the older buildings.

If it has been awhile since visiting the blog we have some great info about things to do here in summit have a look: http://activerain.com/blogsview/478233/Spring-activities-in-Summit. We update the blog regularly so check back often for the latest updates including monthly real estate numbers for the County.

Well it ceases to amaze me but Summit County Real Estate continues to buck the National trend. I will attach January - April's Colorado resort market index so take a look. As a whole the market remains strong. The major resort markets tend to be somewhat insulated from the housing bubbles that can bless or plague parts of the country. We are still averaging double digit appreciation, however days on market and inventory is up slightly from this time in 2007. We attribute this to tighter lending practices versus the last 3 years. Transaction dollar volume continues to rise as the total number of transactions fall. If any of you read the blog or have received our updates before you'll know this has been the case for several years. We see this in every major resort market, as housing prices increase the total amount of purchases fall.

Summit County new construction remains robust. For the first 4 months of the year we produced nearly a 8% increase over 2007, while nationally new construction was down nearly 21% during the same period. Appreciation is still on the rise with the average single family home selling for $40,000 more than in 2007. Summit County real estate appreciation for the first 5 months of the year increased by 5.5 % while nationally we saw a loss in value of about 5%.with some west coast cities fairing much worse.

As you can see Summit County not only is a great place to be but we continue to outperform the rest of the US. Land to build on is still available for your dream home especially in the Highlands just north of Breckenridge and a new development in Silverthorne called Anglers Mountain Ranch. There are a couple of great values on vacant land if you're interested e-mail us and I'll send them over to you. We are still projected for total build out in the next 5-9 years. Frisco is rapidly approaching build out with only 7 lots currently available.

We'll we hope to see you this summer and if you're in the area give us a call (1-800-624-1009 ex 199) we'd love to hear from you. We are in the process of revamping our website and would love some feedback on how to improve it and make it a better tool for our friends and clients. As always you can see any Summit County property available on the MLS at Summit County Real Estate MLS

Resort Real Estate Index by County in Colorado

Year-to-Date Gross Volume Summary through April 30th, 2008 closings totalling: $ 2,096,473,239.00

Percent represented by each County

EAGLE (Vail & Beaver Creek)

33%

SUMMIT (Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper Mountain & A-basin)

16%

GARFIELD (Glenwood Springs)

15%

PITKIN (Aspen)

24%

ROUTT (Steamboat Springs)

12%

Jason & Deanna are Colorado Resort Real Estate Brokers. We can be contacted at (970) 631-6757 or (970) 485-5357.