Here are the monthly stats for Big Bear real estate for the month of July. Sales prices continue to rise and are expected to do so even more, especially with the recent purchase of our local resorts by Aspen/KSL.  Below is a link to an interesting graph from Trulia, which shows that, in Big Bear Lake (92315), the median sales price is now up approximately 60-65% from the bottom of the market in 2011. If you click on “All Properties”and “Max Years”, it will give you a graph all the way back to 2000, which shows the build-up of prices to the past peak in 2006/2007, as well as the drop to the bottom in 2011/2012.  As always, you need to look at the trend line, rather than individual months/quarters because median sales prices can fluctuate considerably from month to month, especially in 92315, where you have cabins under $200K, all the way up to $4M, so the trend is much more accurate than any individual month or quarter.   Also, this time of year is usually the peak inventory (as all summer listings are on the market and people haven’t taken any off for the fall/winter yet), so this time of year always has the most choices for the buyer.  Two years ago the inventory got up around 700 single-family residences, last year it got up to around 620, and this year it’s at only 510 and appears to be starting to go down already (mostly because of increased market activity, it seems).

Finally, here are links to two recent events/projects which have been and are expected to continue to drive price increases in Big Bear Lake, especially in the Moonridge area.  The purchase by Aspen is especially exciting.  Given the price increases since the Mammoth purchase was announced 3 years ago and the infrastructure improvements that were completed by Mammoth (as well as the increased visitors – very important for vacation rentals and local businesses), it will be exciting to see how the influx of capital from Aspen/KSL continues to drive these increases.  At the town hall meeting that was held in April, the Mammoth CEO stated that the influx from Aspen is expected to increase the speed of their planned improvements, which should only lead to increased demand and visitors!!  The new hiking and biking trail project also includes plan to make the Moonridge Corridor more of a “Second Village” area, with turnabouts, bike lanes, and a divider to make the area more pedestrian- and business-friendly.  As anyone who has been to the Village on a weekend during the ski/snowboard season over the last couple of years will understand, this should help to “spread the visitors out” a bit during our busiest times of the year.

Have a great week!