Lincoln County, Wyoming Archives - Page 5 of 10

Residential Summary:

If you’ve been keeping an eye on market reports and property sales throughout Teton Valley in 2017 when compared with the year prior, you’ll notice that sale prices are on the upswing, the median home price has increased, and the total volume has also increased. This is all great news for our local real estate market, but what are the driving factors?

One statistic that is hard to attain is: How many of these sales are resales that occurred over the last 10 years, or prior to the last market boom? Unfortunately the only way to obtain this information is to look at the history of each listing provided by the Teton Board of Realtors. Most of this is accurate, and a quick run through every residential sale in 2017 shows that approximately 40% of all sales that occurred had also sold within the last decade. That means that all of these sales, likely, were for a profit.

This information would indicate that our market inventory might be less than what we think. If the majority of the resale inventory is behind us, and spec home construction remains slow, we should anticipate much lower supply in the coming year unless something changes. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, spec home supply is directly tied to construction costs which we know are currently high.

If the supply of residential inventory remains low, the residential market must climb to meet the rising cost of construction. If this occurs, we should anticipate list prices, and presumably sales prices to continue to rise over the coming year.

Building Site Summary:

Building site sale volume has steadily increase since 2012. Total volume for 2012 including Alta Wyoming totaled 89 sales. 2013 increased to 114 sales, 2015 again increased to 206 sales, 2016 increased to 222 sales, and 214 sales occurred in 2017.

2017 saw an average sale price increase from $82,692 in 2016 to $92,980.

The median sales price in 2016 was $66,292 and the median sales price in 2017 was $65,417.

The statistics over the last 2 years would indicate that buyers tend to be opening their wallets for more expensive parcels with an 11% increase in the average sales price. The median sales price along with the number of lots sold over the past two years would indicate that parcels seem to be selling at the same rate, and approximately the same price.

As with 2017, we have determined that the number of sales was 214. If we divide that by 12 months in a year, we come up with 17.83 sales per month. If we divide this by the number of current listings which is 518, we have 29 months worth of listings currently on the market. This is far fewer than projected numbers provided by professionals throughout the market recession. It is, however, anticipated that the number of new listings will meet the approximate number of parcels currently being absorbed into the marketplace as the number of active listings has been similar over the past several years.

We don’t see a ton of stucco in this area, but have seen it installed in years past. It is also becoming a popular accent material. Also, it is a durable material that rarely needs refinished.

Stucco has, however, had it’s share of troubled times. In the 60’s and 70’s, a stucco system called the Exterior Insulation and Finish System, or EIFS, was introduced. EIFS can be a durable system, which as the name indicates, also offers an additional insualtion layer. Basically a foam board is installed followed by a netting, then stucco. In the late 80’s, lawsuits began to surface due to water intrusion. While little to no siding systems are impereable to moisture, the problem with EIFS then was that it did not allow moisture to escape which created mold and other problems.

Today, EIFS systems and manufacturers have drainage systems which can be installed to prevent problems if moisture becomes present. In addition, most manufactuers require that installers are trained and certified. Repair persons should also be certified by the manufacurer.

In addition to EIFS, traditional stucco is still installed today. Unlike EIFS which is a single layer of stucco (actually synthetic stucco) over the netting and foam board, traditional stucco is a 3 layer system consisting of aggregate, a binder, and water, much like concrete.

With all of the new construction we are seeing today, it is important that if installing stucco, and particularly EIFS, that it is done so by a certified installer. In addition, the certificate should be retained for future buyers as well as future repair or warranty work. It would also be a great idea to have your roofing, siding and decking contractors to have a preliminary meeting with the stucco installer. Any items that meet or cover stucco MUST be property flashed so that water is directed away from, or to proper areas so that the drainage systems mentioned above work properly. If the contractor is not local, you or your general contractor should also review potential problem areas for ice damming. Pay special attention to North facing roof valleys and discuss roof ventilation systems which help prevent ice damming, which is often a result of heat loss.

December ’17 Market Stats

November ’17 Market Stats

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