Sales pace at lowest level in a decade

Following a nationwide ebb in home sales, the Eldorado real-estate market so far this year has set its slowest pace in a decade. Sellers say the market is not as easy to navigate, but sales haven’t come to a standstill.

“It’s no longer a seller’s market,” said Realtor Fred Raznick, who sells houses at Sotheby’s International Realty’s office in the Agora Shopping Center.

Savvy buyers able to figure out which seller is motivated to move might find bargains in a market glutted with inventory, real-estate agents said. Some sellers are cutting prices, but a dramatic downturn in the area housing market hasn’t stopped sales.

Homeowners and agents marketing houses in Eldorado just have to work harder to understand the market, Raznick said.

Kent Jones, a Realtor at Sotheby’s who reports the Eldorado housing inventory each month at eldoradoarearealestate.com, reported 88 houses listed for sale as of Sept. 1, up13 percent over the prior month. Nationwide trends this year have followed the same pattern. In June alone, nationwide inventory climbed more than 5 percent, the National Association of Realtors reported.

As inventory climbed, sales languished. In Eldorado, the number of listed houses under contract dropped from 15 to 13 between Aug. 1 of this year and Aug. 1, 2006. Realtors’ sales during the first six months of 2007 were little better than half the average for recent years — about 60 percent of the five-year average. Sales in the first half of this year were less than half those of the first half of 1999 and 2002.

Several owner-sellers who locally advertised Eldorado properties last week said they expected to sell their houses quickly regardless of recent trends. Some had dropped prices slightly. Others aren’t under immediate pressure to sell.

With a large garage and2,000 square feet of passive-solar-heated living space for sale on Bonito Road, Jean Stokes said she is “not nervous yet about it being on the market a long time.”

She’s already bought a house on a bigger lot in Dos Griegos and is marketing her old house to buyers interested in a chemical-free property. She expects to find a ready buyer in a niche market.

Melinda Owens has had a Puerto Road home on the market for six weeks and has dropped the price by a few thousand dollars, but she’s not worried. She turned down one lower offer.

“We really haven’t had it on the market that long,” Owens said. “We’ve lowered the price a little, but I can’t say it’s that slow.”

“I think Eldorado prices are pretty strong,” said Barbara Rhodes, who is asking$429,000 for a 1,792-square-foot Encantada Loop home with four bedrooms, two baths, passive-solar heating and a shared private well on 1.6 acres bordering an Eldorado greenbelt.

As indicated by Realtor data, median prices in Eldorado are as strong as ever. Realtor-assisted sales set record high median prices in both of the first two quarters of this year, topping $400,000 for the first time in the first quarter of this year. But the median price that the Santa Fe Association of Realtors reports — the middle sale price in an ordered list of all sale prices — might mean more higher-priced homes are being sold and not that particular homes are selling for more.

“The scuttlebutt from what I hear is the Realtors working in the $1 million-plus portion of the market are having a pretty good year, but the Realtors working under $500,000 are not having a good year,” Jones said.

Sales at the lower end of Santa Fe’s pricey market are more likely to be affected by nationwide trends, Jones said. Some owner-sellers echoed his analysis.

Rhodes has had 14 lookers interested in her Encantado Loop home, but she hasn’t closed a sale.

“The people we had come through, they are waiting for their own sales to go through,” Rhodes said.

Sudden changes this year in availability of credit, driven by a collapse of the subprime lending market, have dramatically altered the market climate nationwide. Jones said higher-income buyers are still able to make large down payments or pay in cash, which in part shields the upper end of the market from the credit crunch.

“The market in Eldorado was pretty strong last year through July, then there was a big influx of homes on the market, then there were more buyers who couldn’t qualify,” Jones said.

Raznick said he is having a better year than last year, in part because his experience allows him to work with buyers willing to adjust their sales strategy to the current market. For Raznick, his good sales year has meant longer hours and more weekend work.

“I believe in this market, a successful Realtor has to do more than whatever they have done before,” he said.

He now spends more time researching the market and urges his sellers to do the same. Document your research, he urges, and be prepared to show potential buyers what you have done to adjust to the current market. Well-informed sellers need not woo buyers with price flexibility, he said. Price to the market so you get showings, he advised.

A buyer’s market doesn’t necessarily translate to price pressure on any one seller, Jones cautioned. Research is just as essential for buyers as for sellers. Buyers looking for a bargain can’t expect every seller to be ready to drop prices.

“You just can’t generalize about the motives of sellers. Some need to get on with things, others don’t need to,” Jones said.

Contact David Collins at 986-3064 or dcollins@sfnewmexican.com.