Santa Fe home sales slow down

The general housing-market slowdown across the country apparently reached Santa Fe late last year, the latest home-sales figures show.

Sales in both the city and county of Santa Fe in the fourth quarter of 2006 were well behind figures for the same period a year ago, continuing a trend that became apparent in the third quarter.

The softer real-estate market favors buyers for at least the time being, and likely means some real-estate agents are having a harder time making a living, one longtime real-estate agency owner said Monday.

But while the number of home sales in the city dropped from a late-2005 peak, the median price remained steady when compared with a year earlier.

"In looking at the entire year (of 2006), there's no question there was a slowing down but not a going down," said Wally Sargent of Santa Fe Properties, one of Santa Fe's largest real-estate agencies.

"We didn't experience the type of drop they had in Phoenix or Las Vegas (Nev.) or some of the California markets, but there was definitely a slowing down," he said. "There are more sellers than buyers, and properties are selling when sellers get realistic and don't hold out for top dollar."

The Santa Fe Association of Realtors reported a total of 221 homes in the city sold during the fourth quarter of 2006 -- a 25 percent drop from the same period of 2005.

The median sales price was $375,000, which was close to the $379,500 figure reported for the final three months of 2005. The median sales price means as many homes sold for more than that price as sold for less.

It was a similar story outside city limits. Santa Fe County totals for the fourth quarter of 2006 show 177 homes sold (a 27 percent decline from a year earlier), and the median sales price dropped by 4 percent to $442,000.

The association cautions that not all sales are reported to the local Multiple Listing Service. Those not reported include most of the homes sold in Tierra Contenta, a subdivision off Airport Road created with the help of the city of Santa Fe, and homes developed and sold by such affordable-housing advocacy groups as Santa Fe Community Housing Trust and Homewise.

For all of 2006, business at Santa Fe Properties "was about on par with last year, maybe slightly off," Sargent said. "I suspect that's true for the city in general."

On the other hand, the high-end market -- homes costing $1 million and more -- "heated up quite a bit in the last year," said Sargent, who anticipates 2007 being "a decent year but not a red-hot year like we had in 2004 and 2005."

Overall, "I don't see any kind of bubble bursting here," he said. "It's more back to what we experienced in the past -- a fairly even real-estate business."

The drop in sales came at a time when the number of agents trying to sell real estate increased, Sargent said, which has meant less sales-commission money to go around.

"There's an awful lot of people who have real-estate licenses who do little or no business," Sargent said. "A market like this tends to wring a lot of that out, which at the end of the day is not bad."

David Barker of Barker Realty agreed that there was some softness in real-estate sales in the third and fourth quarters of 2006, a slowdown that has led to an increase in inventory and the number of days it takes to sell a house in Santa Fe.

"More properties are on the market, and fewer are selling," Barker said, a situation that favors buyers at least temporarily. "It's good for the balance of our market."

But Barker said the softness was a "temporary aberration" that's likely to result in a stronger market in 2007.

Proof of Santa Fe's drawing power for Barker is the sales of units at The Alameda Condominiums, a development off Vegas Verdes on Santa Fe's southwest side.

Of the 145 units for sale, almost half have been sold at prices ranging from $220,000 to $311,000.

"A lot of locals are buying and a lot of out-of-towners," he said. "And there's a small component of investors. The project is a good example of how things are in Santa Fe right now."

The association last April changed the way it calculates its numbers by including homes in the moderately priced Airport Road area, including parts outside city limits, when reporting city home sales. That reduced the city median sales price for the fourth quarter of 2006, for example, from $470,000 to $379,500.

Contact Bob Quick at 986-3011 or bobquick@sfnewmexican.com.

MEDIAN SALES PRICES

Fourth quarter

2006 2005

Santa Fe

Northeast $787,000 682,500

Northwest 481,000 432,500

Southeast 619,836 610,000

Southwest 286,000 260,000

Total city 375,000 364,000

Santa Fe county

North 820,000 692,000

Southeast ?29,000 398,000

Southwest 341,695 259,000

Total county 387,610 358,000

Source: Santa Fe Association of Realtors