Well it’s been a busy Christmas – as usual lots of people in town, many doing the Canyon Road farolito walk, (NPR story here) many more taking the new RailRunner train from Albuquerque to Santa Fe and back.  In fact the train was standing room only for most of the past week!  

Lots of people considering property purchases here too.  Why? Well prices are great, rates are low, and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. (either a derailed RailRunner or a new hopeful dawn, depending on your political outlook!).   I have been working with clients at price ranges from $250,000 to $800,000 over the past ten days or so.  Seems to be a sweet spot for Santa Fe at the moment.

While we don’t have many foreclosures in Santa Fe – less than 100 – a look at the Santa Fe MLS shows that we have a couple of hundred pre-foreclosures, a category I much prefer to work with than foreclosures, because you’re still working with a local realtor and an owner, albeit a very stressed out one.

So, we have great properties in a town that most people love, at very aggressive pricing.  And, I would suggest, we are probably bumping along the bottom of the price range at this point.  Next year will stay low, with a good inventory, as current properties go through the system.   Of course, like all predictions, this may be totally wrong.  However, I am seeing so much interest in moving to Santa Fe, constrained only by credit or a property to sell somewhere else, that I think with a small thaw in the national housing market Santa Fe will start to pick itself up again.