Jackson Hole, WY Mid Year Market Report 2014

Trends Set in First Quarter Continue as Prices Continue to Rise, but Sales Volume Lessens Amid Lower Home Inventory

When aggregating the data for single-family homes, vacant land and attached homes, the first half of 2014 shows a contraction in the number of sales and total dollar volume of sales. This phenomenon is attributed to a decrease in listing inventory, with the inventory as of the beginning of August being over 20% less than it was the same time last year. As a result of this market tightening, single-family home sales are off in number by nearly 38%. The number of attached home sales and vacant land sales are also down (11.65% and 5.49% respectively) but not to the degree of detached, improved residences. The disparity between these market segments can be attributed to the fact that vacant land and attached home markets were slower to recover than the single-family housing market, thereby offering a greater inventory from which buyers could choose as of the start of 2014. Additionally, it is a reasonable hypothesis that the earlier recovery of the single-family housing market gave many single-family home sellers the confidence to “test the waters” with higher asking prices at the beginning of the summer sales season. Therefore, it is not an unreasonable hypothesis that some asking prices could be reduced as the end of September nears. That said, this should not be considered a forgone conclusion, as the distressed inventory of Teton County has already been absorbed and remaining sellers appear to be operating at their leisure. The aggregated data for residential real estate sales also shows a contraction in average price. However, this is misleading, as the fluctuation in mean sales price is due to the changing composition of the field of sold properties. More specifically, it is noted that more mid-to-lower-priced homes are selling than luxury homes (2013 Q1/Q2 saw 17 sales $3M or greater while 2014 Q1/Q2 only recorded 12 such sales). Comparison of sales and re-sales of similar or identical properties corroborates the observation of increasing prices despite a decrease in aggregate prices through the reporting annualized appreciation rates from 4.5% to 28% (with an average of approximately 12.5%).

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