Although the Steamboat real estate market saw just 29 single-family homes sell in the first quarter of 2010, the average price remained a hefty $729,388, according to the Western Mountain Resort Alliance.
In that respect, the market most similar to Steamboat, among 11 ski towns monitored by WMRA is Summit County, where the average home price in the first quarter of 2010 was $739,725.
The average home price in Telluride during the same period was $3.33 million, topping Vail at $1.95 million.

The Village at Steamboat and Wyndham Vacation Resorts did $5.2 million in timeshare transactions in June, accounting for two thirds of the real estate unit volume.
Bruce Carta of Land Title Guarantee Company reports that of 167 sales here last month, 117 were timeshare units and of those, 112 came from the Village at Steamboat.
Steamboat’s overall June dollar volume of $35.7 million was 116 percent of last year’s total, Carta said.

Eliese Pivarnik of Colorado Group Realty is touting a bank-owned four-bedroom, three-bath unit at the Cascades at Eagleridge Townhomes as one of the best buys at the mountain. At $425,000, the three-story townhome is priced at $199 per square foot. It totals 2,134 square feet. The project is within walking distance of the ski area.

The National Association of Realtors is praising Congress for its passage of two bills to extend the home buyer tax credit closing deadline and reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program. Both bills, strongly supported by NAR, had cleared the House earlier and were passed by the Senate just before the breaking for the Fourth of July holiday.
The tax credit closing deadline and the NFIP reauthorization were extended to Sept. 30. Extending the tax credit closing and flood insurance deadlines will help provide additional stability to real estate markets across the nation, NAR said.
“What a great way to begin celebrating our nation’s most patriotic holiday by opening the door to the American dream of homeownership to thousands of home buyers who would have been shut out of the homes of their dreams through no fault of their own,” said NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox Real Estate in Tucson, Ariz.
“We know that up to 180,000 home buyers eligible for the tax credit are rejoicing this morning. And we all thank both houses of Congress for their work to ensure passage of both bills,” Golder said. She singled out Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) and Congressman Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) for their efforts to extend the tax credit closing deadline.
The passage of H.R. 5623, the Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act, applies the homebuyer tax credit closing deadline extension only to homebuyers who have ratified contracts in place as of April 30, but could not close before June 30. The legislation is designed to create a seamless extension of the new closing deadline for eligible transactions to September 30. There will be no gap between June 30 and the date the president signs the bill into law.

Television correspondent Diane Eastabrook of PBS reported June 29 that professional baby boomers are once again returning to real estate, and in particular vacation homes, as investments.
Eastabrook said the increasing availability of jumbo loans is helping. Still, she reported, the vacation home market has a long way to go to return to the 2005 peak of about 1 million vacation homes sold nationally.
For purposes of her report, resort homes purchased for income, were not included in the trend.