By: Deb Dion
If you think Telluride’s only jagged peaks are the San Juan Mountains, you should take a look at the staggering steeps in the graphs of its real estate market. Judi Kiernan has kept her eye on its ups and downs in the region for two decades with her company, Telluride Consulting. This year, she published a book—her second—analyzing local real estate trends over a 20-year period. The graphed trends, like the local peaks, will take your breath away. Imagine the steep steps between, say, the average price of a Mountain Village homesite in 1985—$173,400—and in 2004—$911,000.

The book is more than a compilation of statistics that Kiernan sends to her clients each month; it also takes a hard look at the region itself and the various real estate components that make up the market.

There are general overviews from 1985 through 2004, but some of the most interesting analyses are those that separate segments of the market: vacant land sales in San Miguel County, the dollar volume of all deed-restricted unit sales, or the average condominium size in Telluride or Mountain Village each year of the last two decades.

The book is as interesting to the buyer or county resident as it is to real estate professionals, with fodder such as the most expensive Mountain Village home ($11.6 million), or the percentage of San Miguel County that is public land (65), or the population of Telluride at the height of the mining boom in the 1880s (3,000—almost twice the current population of the resort town). For more information about the 20-year real estate market analysis, visit www.tellurideconsulting.com.

Telluride Visitor Guide