Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Telluride Blues & Brews Announces 2012 Festival Lineup

The 19th Annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival will play host to, among others, the following lineup of acts:

Phil Lesh & Friends
Gov’t Mule
The B-52s
Chris Robinson Brotherhood
MarchFourth Marching Band
Tab Benoit
Little Hurricane and The Lee Boys

According to festival promoters, more acts will be announced in May, and tickets are now on sale.

For more information on this or on Telluride area real estate, please feel free to contact us at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com, or http://www.telluriderealestatecorp.com/

Monday, April 23, 2012

TREC Listing Nominated For HGTV's "Doory" Awards

TREC's listing at 160 Sunnyridge Place has been nominated for a 2012 Doory Award from HGTV, in the "Master Suites" category.  Starting today, April 23rd, visit http://www.frontdoor.com/ to place your vote for your favorite!

For more information on this, or Telluride area real estate, please contact us at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com, or http://www.telluriderealestatecorp.com/.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Telluride Real Estate Market Recap - First Quarter 2012

Greetings from Telluride ~

We have had an excellent winter in Telluride with over 17 feet of snow and an uptick in both retail sales and skier days.  The Historic Town of Telluride reports that retail sales year end 2011 were the highest in 20 years.  After rather lackluster real estate sales in the month of January, it appears as though transactions for February and March are tracking attained numbers for those same months of 2011.

$18.9M of sales closed in February (vs. $19.8M in February of 2011) and $38.1M of sales have closed in March (vs. $27.3M in March of 2011) - - a 40% increase in sales dollar transactions with a 26% increase in transaction volume.  So, it certainly seems that momentum is gaining in our marketplace and has nearly made up for slow sales in the month of January.

On another very positive note, over $91M is currently under contract which bodes well for April and May which realized approximately $42.6M in total sales for those months in 2011.  44 properties sold or contracted YTD are over $1M with 25 between $2M - $12.5M, so it appears as the upper end of the market is experiencing a bit of a revival.

During the past 12 months, the Town of Telluride seemingly has been the market leader with 18 sales over $1M, 10 sales above $2M, 4 sales between $2.9M - $6M and those four sales averaged $934 PSF. The Telluride Mountain Village Market continues to present excellent buyer opportunities with 76 homes currently in market above $1M.  The Mountain Village experienced 27 transactions over $1M during the same period, 13 of those transactions were over $2M and 5 between $5M - $12.5M.  This compares to the prior 12 months where there were 39 sales above $1M, 17 above $2M and 6 between $5.1M and $9.5M.

Telluride has also been the recipient of some very good press as of late, being acknowledged by both National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveler as being one of the top ski resorts in the world (see links below).

 

http://www.cntraveler.com/ski-areas/2011/12/top-ski-resorts-2011#slide=4
 
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/trips/best-ski-towns-photos/?source=TravHPCarouselSkiTowns#/telluride-colorado-snowboard_47319_600x450.jpg

Below is a list of our outstanding summer festivals:
Mountain Film Festival - May 25-28, 2012
Telluride Bluegrass Festival - June 21-24, 2012
Telluride Wine Festival - June 27 - July 1, 2012
Telluride Plein Air Festival - June 29-July 5, 2012
Fireman's Fourth of July Celebration - July 4, 2012
Telluride Playwright's Festival - TBA, 2012

Telluride Yoga Festival - July 12-15, 2012
Telluride Americana Music Festival - July 18-21, 2012
Telluride Jazz Celebration - August 3-5, 2012
Telluride Festival of the Arts - August 10-12, 2012
Telluride Film Festival- August 31 - September 3, 2012
Telluride Blues & Brews Festival - September 14-16, 2012

We look forward to seeing you in the mountains this summer!  As always, for more information on this or Telluride homes, condos or land opportunities, please contact us at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com, or visit http://www.telluriderealestatecorp.com/

Sunday, April 8, 2012

TMRAO Announces Summer Flights Into Montrose/Telluride

From the Telluride Daily Planet, April 8, 2012:
By Noya Kahovi - Staff Reporter

The Telluride Montrose Regional Air Organization announced the schedule for summer air service from Dallas and Houston to Montrose this week.

United Airlines will fly between Houston and Montrose on Wednesdays and Saturdays, June 9 through Oct. 6. American Airlines will offer daily flights between Dallas and Montrose from June 9 to Sept. 4. These flights are aimed at drawing more visitors to the region.

TMRAO has been struggling with increasing fuel prices and subsequent growing demand for minimum revenue guarantees from airlines. Last year, the organization approached local governments and businesses for money in a last minute effort to cover a gap in funding to maintain winter service. But, after raising $400,000, U.S. Airways cancelled its Phoenix to Telluride service. The airline had limited inventory of airplanes that could land in the Telluride Regional Airport, the highest commercial airport in the country, and they moved those to the east coast; thus cancelling the successful service.

The cancellation was announced towards the end of September, too late for TMRAO to secure an alternative service in a tight market, and so the organization had leftovers from the money raised to cover the gap in winter funding. 


“Last year, we thought we wouldn’t have enough funds to go after any summer service,” said Scott Stewart, TMRAO’s executive director. “Back when we were soliciting support, we were going for winter, the more lucrative season. We were trying to beef up winter service to what we had last winter. We didn’t think we’d be able to do summer at all.”

TMRAO used the leftover money to secure the summer flights. “We weren’t able to reallocate the funds for winter air service, so we went back to the governments in January and gave them some options as to what to do with them.”

An option to put the money into winter marketing was nixed because officials thought it was too late in the season for a campaign. Instead, Stewart said, they wanted to see continuation into summer service.

Even when taking into consideration the newly funded summer service, flights into the region are still showing a decrease.

“Despite our success in maintaining the Dallas and Houston flights, we have seen a decrease in United flights from Denver this summer,” Stewart said in a press release. “We are in a very challenging airline service environment where many small communities are losing air service. Fortunately, we have an organized support program in TMRAO and a supportive community that is proactively working to retain air service to the Montrose Airport. The economic impacts and opportunities commercial air service provides a community is critical to a healthy community.”

Telluride Regional Airport is in TMRAO’s sight as well, with two projects in development. The organization recently started looking into leasing an aircraft that would be dedicated to increasing frequency of Great Lakes flights to TEX. TMRAO is also still eyeing a low-cost air carrier to fly into Montrose and Telluride airports. A deal with such a carrier would significantly lower airfare, but negotiations are still in their initial stages for both projects. 


“These things go according to the airlines’ schedule,” Stewart said.

For more information on this or Telluride area real estate, please contact us at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com or http://www.telluriderealestatecorp.com/


Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Hamptons Real Estate Heating Up - Telluride's, Too!

From MSNBC.com, April 4, 2012:

When a five-bedroom waterfront estate in the Town of Southampton went on sale in 2008 for $5.8 million, the price must have seemed reasonable. After all, second-home prices on the Hamptons, the summer playground for wealthy New Yorkers, had been rising steadily for six straight years.
But the house, ringed with mahogany decks and including a vintage pool house, finally sold a few months ago for only $2.75 million, less than half the original asking price.
"They weren't thrilled, let's just say that," realtor Marcia Altman of Brown, Harris Stevens said of the sellers. "They had turned down higher offers in the past, thinking they were too low, and they just got tired of waiting."
That may be a very good sign for the Hamptons luxury real estate market, which has been burdened for nearly four years with a glut of homes priced too high to sell.
All over the Hamptons, summer homes are starting to move again, according to more than two dozen people involved in the market, including real estate brokers, attorneys, analysts, county officials and local residents. And that is starting to show up in the figures, with pending contract sales rising for five straight months across Long Island's Suffolk County, which includes the Hamptons.
"The enthusiasm of the buyers is something we haven't seen in years," said Pamela Liebman, president of Corcoran Group Real Estate. "We still have a lot of unrealistic sellers, but they're beginning to come down and meet the market."
A number of elements are shoring up the market: Prices are being cut to levels the market can stand, the economy has stabilized, jobs growth has picked up and banks are loosening up lending. Also, foreign buyers - in particular British, Russian and South American financiers and industrialists - are adding to the buying interest coming from stars of the entertainment and sports worlds, the brokers said.
One of the jewels of the U.S. eastern seaboard, the group of agrarian towns and villages about 90 miles east of Manhattan known as the Hamptons has for many years been the summer retreat for Wall Street bankers, hedge fund managers and other affluent Americans drawn to sun-splashed dunes and the tranquility of its seaside communities.
While lower bonuses for bankers and the weak performance of much of the hedge fund industry in 2011 kept interest in property deals in check, the strength of the stock and corporate bond markets so far this year is improving sentiment. An unusually warm winter has also helped, brokers said.
Prices are still depressed, but that could change this summer.
"The prices remain soft for now, but if the pending sales contract trend continues, houses will move, the inventory will tighten up and we'll begin to see a shift from a buyer's market to a seller's market," said Tricia Chirco of Multiple Listings Service, Long Island, a clearinghouse of local real estate statistics. "We're stabilizing. And after the past three years, stable is good."
Last year, there were 1,605 residential sales on the East End of Long Island, up from 1,178 in 2008, said analyst Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel Inc.
At the market peak in 2005, there were 2,528 sales. Boldfaced names are back in the buyer's market. Pop star Jennifer Lopez is in contract in Water Mill. Dallas Mavericks basketball star Jason Kidd just closed on a $5 million home there and NBC News anchor Matt Lauer recently purchased 40 acres adjoining his Water Mill property to build a horse farm.
Down on Southampton's storied oceanfront Meadow Lane, a six- bedroom mansion sold last month for $28.5 million, property records show. Nearby, another property is in contract for $19.95 million. A 14,000-square-foot, 11-bedroom manse in East Hampton designed by Carnegie Hill architect William B. Tuthill is in contract for $24.5 million.
$8.5 million discount At the heart of the problem in the years since the financial crisis in 2008 has been the reluctant seller.
Over time, the reluctant seller "will look to blame everything else but the economy," said Westhampton Beach broker Vicky Reynolds. "First they'll blame the broker, then they will say it's not being advertised in the right places and then they'll say the appraisal is not high enough."
But there are plenty of examples of sellers starting to come to terms with big price drops over the past few years. Take 24 Ocean Avenue, a spacious, five-bedroom Dutch Colonial on three acres in East Hampton Village, one of the most sought-after enclaves on the South Fork.
With four fireplaces, a gunite pool, sunken tennis court and a refurbished carriage house, the home premiered on the market on March 17, 2008, for $18.5 million, according to records.
By the following January, the price had dropped to $15,995,000 and within six months fell again to $13,500,000 in June 2009. In early 2010, the property was taken off the market and relisted in March for $12,500,000. A year later, the owners took it down to $9,999,000, where it still sits, unsold.
The Hamptons rental market, though, has remained relatively stable throughout most of the downturn, meeting the needs of those who weren't ready to buy in a troubled market. But that may taper off as sales grow, said Judi Desiderio, president of Town and Country Realty in East Hampton.
"It's pretty common that when sales are really high, rentals are a little soft and vice-versa - it's the same audience," she said. "We did more rentals after Bear and Lehman fell, but the total value of the sales was lower."
Renting a beachfront home in the Hamptons this summer can cost anything from $3,000 for a small cottage on the dunes in Westhampton Beach for the month of August to nearly $500,000 for the same period for a 12-bedroom oceanfront compound in Southampton. Some rarified properties known to only a few top brokers can go for as much as $1 million a month.
Foreign money The Village Latch, one of the Hamptons most postcard perfect inns, located in the heart of Southampton Village, is on sale for a cool $19 million. Of the recent prospective buyers, one stood out - an all-cash bid from a Chinese woman married to a British financial industry titan.
The couple met while stationed in London, worked together in Hong Kong and were recently re-assigned to Manhattan. The bid fell short, but the buyers were typical of an influx of foreign money into the Hamptons market, said broker Enzo Morabito, an executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman.
"When we talk international buyers, in my experience, we are talking mostly the United Kingdom," said Desiderio. "And we're seeing a lot of people who still live in England but will summer out here. The UK contingent is mostly from the financial sector. But the majority, more than three-quarters of our business is still mostly New Yorkers."
Ironically, a recovery in the property market here may be unfolding just as a fiscal crisis slams the local authority for the Hamptons area - Suffolk County - listed in 2008 by Forbes magazine as the fourth-richest county in America. Like many counties across the country, Suffolk's budget has been hit with falling revenue from sales tax collections and higher expenses, as public-sector pension costs rise.
Last month, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone declared a state of fiscal emergency following the release of a report that calculated a $530 million budget shortfall over three years. Property tax value in Suffolk County has declined 16 percent since 2008, according to county officials, and a New York state property tax cap of two percent or the rate of inflation - whichever is lower - prevents the county from driving much revenue through property tax increases.
But the indirect effects of a bolstered Hamptons real estate market could be significant. When the property sector is buzzing so is the local economy, whether it is retail sales, local restaurant bookings or jobs for those renovating houses, doing landscaping or providing a myriad of home-related services.

We have seen a similar heating up of the real estate market in Telluride, whether it's high-end luxury homes, ski-in/ski-out condos or land to build a dream home.  For more information, please contact us at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com, or http://www.telluriderealestatecorp.com/

Monday, April 2, 2012

Telluride's Press Accolades Continue to Stack Up

TELLURIDE GARNERS ACCOLADES IN THE PRESS IN 2011/2012:

Forbes:
"Top 5 Ski Resorts"

National Geographic:
"World’s 25 Best Ski Towns"

Conde Nast Reader Survey:
"Top 3 Ski Resorts In North America"

Yahoo Travel:
"Best Ski Resorts for Non-Skiers"

Ski Magazine:
"Top 10 Apres/Nightlife Ski Resorts"

Lonely Planet:
"Top 10 A-List Ski Resorts"

Sunset Magazine:
"Prettiest Ski Town in the West"

Isn't it time to discover what everyone is talking about?  For more information on Telluride and Telluride area real estate, please contact your TREC broker today at 970-728-3111, http://www.telluriderealestatecorp.com/, or info@telluriderealestatecorp.com