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The pages available on this site are now updated with data from sales of residential property thru the end of May, 2014. When compared with inventory, this allows one to calculate an absorption rate, which I publish for various price ranges in the Santa Fe NM residential real estate market.
With years of data, it is fairly easy to decipher some trend lines. We are seeing slow but steady improvement. Maybe even better than slow as this year’s first five months were up almost seven percent above last year’s first five months for sales. Many markets would love to have nearly seven percent growth and I suggest we should be happy to have that also. May 2014 was below May 2013, but the trend line is still climbing and the mood is improved over last year. There are actually newly licensed agents coming into the industry – to take advantage of the easy money by being a real estate professional, of course!
Inventory keeps climbing, as is normal for our move from winter into summer, so the increase in sales does not necessarily look dramatic. We still have plenty of homes in every price range, although only an “excessive” amount in the upper prices ranges. One may draw many different conclusions from our current range of data, and many do. What seems clear is that Santa Fe does not follow national or regional trends and we are also not in the oil patch, which had created improving economies all around us. We do benefit indirectly and when Santa Fe County put the brakes on natural gas drilling in our area, we collectively chose not to be in the forefront of the energy extraction economy.
Having just recently driven through parts of the Western US, oil wells are seemingly everywhere, but not around here. We want the energy sector professional to have a spouse that makes art so Santa Fe is on their list and they consider us for a primary or secondary home. OR a vacation, as a minimum. Getting people to Santa Fe is often enough to entice them to start thinking about living here.
Enjoy the summer season and thank each other for the unusual spring rains we have received! The weeds are growing and you might even hear a mosquito buzzing your ear these days.