Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that increases in inventory and days-on-market data are indicative of a market favoring buyers.

Buyers largely held the upper hand in Summit County’s real estate market in 2024 and had more negotiating power compared to recent years as trends moved away from the High Country’s pandemic-fueled real estate spike, real estate agents say.

Residential real estate transactions amounted to over $1.9 billion from approximately 1,269 transactions in Summit this year, according to the Land Title Guarantee Co. This is a bump from the approximate $1.6 billion accumulated from around 1,221 transactions in 2023. 

Inventory, the number of days a property spent on the market and average sales price all rose in 2024, according to the area’s Multiple Listing Service data. While the average sales price climbed around 10%, the listed-price-to-sold-price ratio dropped a percent or two and remained at 95-97% throughout the year. Homes were often sold for less than originally listed.  

Increases in inventory and days-on-market data are indicative of a market favoring buyers, real estate agents say, and sellers’ aspirational listing prices further fueled the trend. 

“Previously (a listing) would get multiple offers, and so the sellers (were) getting a higher sales price. …Now that we’ve become more of a normalized market, there’s more room for the buyers to negotiate because they’re not competing with other buyers for the same property,” Re/Max agent Jan Leopold said. 

Real estate agent Dishon Lutz said the market hasn’t been this way in years because of the pandemic-fueled real estate boom, and that created a lingering sentiment among sellers. 

Summit-based real estate agents reported prices jumping 15-20% each year from 2020 to 2022. They say the mountains were viewed as a rural oasis for city dwellers looking to dodge packed cities as COVID-19’s presence increased. It was the epitome of a sellers market. Sellers could list their properties at record-high prices, and buyers had competition. The most expensive home to sell in Summit County sold for $17 million at the height of the pandemic in 2021. 

A new normal was set for sellers based off a couple years of the same trend. Lutz said the real estate market is a rapidly evolving one, and sometimes the general public might not realize it and refer to price ranges that worked maybe a year ago, but not now. 

He said while the 2024 market might not have been ideal for sellers it was “great for buyers because they had the ability to actually negotiate and do appropriate due diligence, and (other aspects of negotiating) that may have been wiped away just because of supply and demand.”

Real estate data from Land Title Guarantee Co. shows the average residential single-family home went for around $2.3 million in 2024. The average price for a multifamily unit was around $1 million, and the average price for vacant land was around $713,000. 

Leopold said 2024 brought a lot of new construction throughout Summit, and it was a year that highlighted which towns have room to grow and which ones don’t. 

Data Leopold pulled from the area’s multiple listing demonstrated Keystone, which officially became a town in February 2024, saw a 32% bump in sales. Keystone has numerous potential residential construction opportunities in front of it, she said, and there’s far more short-term rental licenses available in comparison to other Summit communities. 

Frisco, which has been teetering on the line of its residential build-out limit set by local officials, saw a 8% drop in sales year over year. The town introduced new construction in 2024, like the Nellie’s Neighborhood development that added 15 homes to the community, and this further ate into its inventory of buildable land. 

“What we in the industry say about Frisco is it’s kind of locked in by the (Dillon Reservoir), the (White River) National Forest and (Interstate 70),” Leopold said, noting the community has factors which limit the amount of buildable land compared to other Summit communities. 

She said real estate agents in Summit are very optimistic about 2025, specifically because the buyer hesitancy which generally accompanies election years won’t be around anymore. She added sales in the first few weeks of 2025 are already outpacing 2024’s.