Sales are down 50% year-over-year, and you call it a "slight chill"? You've got to be kidding. This is huge. Jackson Hole is absolutely not immune, and it will crash. Please tell it like it is next time.

Note that the median sale price is a trailing indicator, and will start seeing big declines 6-12 months after sales start dropping. By 2009 there will be no doubt that the high end is not insulated, not at Yellowstone Club, not at Aspen, and certainly not in Jackson Hole.

The good news is that the "affordable housing" problem will take care of itself, once the speculators start bailing out of their formerly half-million-dollar crappy condos.

Hi Tim,

I agree -- the "slight chill" is perhaps the wrong phrase -- I was going off of what I saw as mixed messages in the story to which I was referring. Home sales took a drastic slide, yes, but home prices are still rising. But your point about that being a trailing indicator is well taken and a good thing to remember.

Thanks for the comment. By the way, you might be interested in an upcoming story of our about troubles in the high-end market, which are already starting to percolate in Idaho at Tamarack, at Promontory in Utah and a few other luxury resorts that are in bankruptcy proceedings. A little more on the two I mentioned here:
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/credit_suisses_troubled_western_empire/C61/L36/

Thanks for the reply, Courtney. Sorry if my comment on the headline came across a bit harsh.. the Star-Tribune and Billings Gazette also had wimpy headlines.

Since the Northern Rockies are on the back side of this nationwide housing bust, we have the benefit of looking at leading-edge locations (AZ, FL, and CA) to see how they went down. The "big three" states had massive drops in sales starting in 2005. Prices then dropped starting around 2007, and it's only becoming apparent now in 2008 how this is no 6-month "rough patch." These things take time.

I won't say for sure that Jackson Hole will see the exact same trend, but a 50% sales drop indicates to me that something big is starting to go down. How many Jackson Hole transactions were driven by now-dried-up coastal equity?

New West's coverage of the resort troubles has been excellent! These are important stories that could have major effects on state economies. The Credit Suisse article you link to covered it all quite concisely. I look forward to the next installment. Not many other media outlets are covering these issues.

Here in Jackson we may see a slow down in volume of sales. But the slow down will be temporary, and the slow down unfortunately will not affect prices for real estate. The really unfortunate consequence of escalating real estate prices is the burden of property taxes on those owning who are under the median price. Tax increases this past year have been from 25% - 50%. of course this comes with no increase in services.
Teton county, Idaho on the other side from jackson has seen a severe downturn in both volume of sales and weakness in prices.