High-end home inventory up for debate

BOULDER – While a panel of Realtors led by Joel Ripmaster, president and managing broker of Colorado Landmark Realtors, did its best to quantify inventory of million-dollar-plus homes on the market in the Boulder Valley, several audience members said those numbers are askew, during the High-End Hopes session of the Boulder Valley Real Estate Conference Thursday.

Coming up with an accurate inventory of high-end homes for sale in the Boulder Valley is next to impossible because of all the pocket listings Realtors are carrying around.

A pocket listing is a real estate industry term that denotes a property where a broker holds a signed listing agreement (or contract) with the seller, whether that be an exclusive right to sell or exclusive agency agreement or contract, but where it is never advertised nor entered into a multiple-listing system.

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Scott Remmert of the Remmert Group of Colorado Landmark Realtors said it’s frustrating to not have more homes to show prospective buyers, while James Simpson, with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty, said it can work in a Realtor’s favor. “A limited inventory creates a high demand, plus it gives you the opportunity to pitch developers on the idea of spec-building houses again,” Simpson said.

Ripmaster said despite the real estate slump nationally, Boulder is holding its own and pointed out high-end sales represent only 3.5 percent of the Boulder Valley market. He showed a slide that placed Snowmass with the highest average home sale price in Colorado at $2.9 million, and that Boulder ranked No. 13 in the state and 865 in the country.

“We think we’re hot stuff,” Ripmaster said. “But we’re pretty average.”

Ripmaster said last year there were 72 homes that sold for more than $1 million, pointing out that the local market has held steady from 2001 to 2007, and dropped only slightly in the last few years.

Remmert pointed out that high-end homes are selling for 76 percent of the original asking price.

Panelist John McElveen with Re/Max of Boulder, said the luxury condominium market is facing an inventory shortage as well. “There’s not much new inventory coming on the market,” he said.

Challenges facing the high-end market include the perceived limited inventory and the stagnant national market. Some people who may wish to relocate to the Boulder Valley can’t find a buyer for the home they currently live in.

The daylong conference was presented by the Boulder County Business Report.