Second homes on hold: mountain resort sales have plummeted, but prices haven't.

• Author: Lewis, David
• Position: Q1 REAL ESTATE REPORT

Here's a quick quiz for avid ColoradoBiz readers. Which of the following does not belong: a ) the Fall of Carthage, b) the Rape of the Sabines; c) the Chicago Fire; d) the Hindenburg Disaster; e) Hurricane Andrew; f) Hurricane Katrina; g) the Colorado second-home market?

You are correct. The answer is g).

It was no fun being a Sabine or a Carthaginian, it got awfully hot in Chicago and on the Hindenburg, and awfully wet under Andrew and Katrina. Similarly, the state's second-home market has become terrifically cold and terribly dry.

But it appears to be short of a full-blown disaster. Unless, of course, you are a Realtor who can't quite make it through this particular drought or, perhaps, a desperate seller.

That's because the Colorado second home market exhibits welcome signs of hardihood. Mountain resort real estate sales activity has dropped by one-third to one-half, depending on the location. But median prices have--miraculously?--maintained, or almost.

For instance, a report released in late January by Land Title Guarantee Co. indicated that the number of Pitkin County real estate deals in 2008 dropped 40 percent from 2007, while the dollar volume of these transactions fell 46 percent. In next-door Garfield County, the number of real estate sales dropped 44 percent to 1,560, while sales dollar volume sank 41 percent. Summit County's numbers also show a sharp drop in transactions and an increase in the value of the median single-family home. (Pitkin County includes Aspen and Snowmass; Garfield County includes Glenwood Springs and Carbondale; Summit County includes Keystone, Breckenridge and Dillon.)

The anecdotal evidence supports this notion of near-price stability. Telluride is geographically isolated, and the town also is home to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and newcomers Jerry Seinfeld and Kelly Ripa (although Oprah moved out, sob). But it does not appear to be the exception to this rule.

Telluride-based Telluride Mountain Real Estate crunched some 2008 numbers and concluded that, "Sales are down, we're doing half the sales that we did the year before this one," broker associate Garrett Simon says. "But homes have appreciated, still. We did the numbers, and in the town of Telluride there was almost an $80 per square foot to $90 per square foot price gain. Prices actually went up last year."

Current prices also seem to buttress the impression that surviving and/or successful real estate workers are maintaining a collective stiff upper...