Unaffected by the slowdown

The economy and the real estate is the topic of discussion just about everywhere these days. I feel like I have a fairly unique viewpoint since I am familiar with two totally different market areas. For over ten years I owned and operated a REMAX office in Destin Florida. A couple of years ago My wife and I sold our office and moved to Colorado where my family is from and built a log home on a ranch just outside of La Veta. Now I sell real estate in Colorado as a broker associate. 

My wife and I turned over all of our personal business to our daughter who still lives in Florida. Karrie used to work with us and now she has taken over the lead and is doing a fine job. 

The market in Destin is probably one of the worst effected markets in the country. We had a fantastic 3 or 4 years in a row. The Destin was blazing hot. Property values for condos almost doubled during that period. Then Katrina slammed New Orleans. We were basically unaffected by the hurricane but we were clobbered by the fallout. Immediately, home and condominium sales went into a tail spin. Very little sold in the two years after Katrina. We had experienced "in my opinion" a topping out of real estate values right before Katrina hit and the market had already started to slow down a little before the hurricane. But thats not the end of it. Shortly after Katrina all of the major insurance companies started dropping policies in north west Florida. 

This was devastating to the local market. Prices have plummeted in some cases as much as 40% since the highs of 2004. The market is still overloaded with actively listed properties over two and a half years later. The good news is the values may have started to stabilize somewhat.  My daughter is one of the few Realtors in town that still does a good amount of business.

On the flip side of this is southern Colorado. The rural area I now market to is very diverse. There are plenty of multi million dollar ranches, homes and land parcels as well as everything below. The La Veta / Cuchara real estate market has never seen any wild growth or appreciation. Over the years we have had a slow steady increase in sales and property values. So it has been no surprise to me that last year was the second best year ever for sales in my market area. I wish I had the inventory for all of the higher end buyers for our market.

It's strange how completely different two separate markets can be.

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