Mary Weaver

In looking at the current market for homes and town homes for sale in Alto Lakes Golf & CC, I thought it would be interesting to compare the current stats to those reported in Aug, 2008 in Buyers Market in Alto - Aug. 2008 . The number of site built homes, with a full golf membership, currently listed is 110, as compared to 82 in Aug. 2008. The current median listing price for this group is $366,000 as compared to $407,250 back in August.

The median price per sq. foot has dropped to a current price of $169 down from the previous number of $180 / sq. ft. The median listed home size is 1600 sq. ft. as compared to 2256 sq. ft. in August.

There are 26 homes currently listed in Alto with a social membership. The median listing price is $356,000 with a median sq. ft. price of $167. These numbers are down slightly from August, 2008 when the median price was $359,000 and price per sq. ft was $169, for the 23 properties that were listed then.

There are currently 8 town homes and condos listed in Alto. Median price is $288,750 as compared to $399,000 in August. All but one of these properties have a Full Golf Membership.

If you would like to receive a list of all properties for sale in Alto Lakes Golf & Country Club, please email mary@ruidoso-homes.com or call or text me at 575-937-5229.

Read more about Alto New Mexico Property at the Ruidoso-blog.

If you are looking for land to move a modular or manufactured home on to, there is currently a wide selection, in several price ranges. In the lower price range, from $8,000 to $40,000, there are 34 listings in the area north of Ruidoso to Capitan. Many of these are in the Rancho Ruidoso Valley Estates Subdivision, with lot sizes of 1/2 acre to 1 1/2 acres.

Most of these will allow new double wide homes. Median price on these lots is $12,250. Utilities are available on most ( but not all ) of these lots. Acreage in the area north of Ruidoso to Capitan, where both modular and manufactured homes are allowed, and measuring from 2 to 10 acres in size, is more limited. Currently only 6 tracts are listed in the $40,000 to $80,000, with a median price of $56,250. In Ruidoso, there are currently 20 lots measuring less than one acre, which allow for new or used manufactured and modular homes, and in the price range of $20,000 to $80,000. The median price on these lots is $29,900.

Read more of this entry at The Ruidoso-blog

The Ranches of Sonterra is one of the primary subdivisions, in the Ruidoso area for those who are looking for a nice home on acreage. The minimum lot size in this subdivision is 5 acres and horses are allowed. The terrain is rolling hills, great views and a beautiful river valley. For more background information on Ranches of Sonterra, see updates at the Ruidoso Blog.

Twenty three homes are currently listed, and many of these have had price reductions of 10% to 20% over the last several months. Current listings range in price from $225,000 to $979,000. The average list price is $608,419, and the median is $585,000. The average price per square foot is $195 and the median is $203. The median days on the market for these listings 169 days.

Given these factors, and the current real estate market, buyers will likely find excellent value in one of Lincoln County’s most popular subdivisions.

In my opinion, one of the best values in Ranches of Sonterra at this time is a brand new 2750 square foot, single level, southwestern style home on 5 acres that is priced at just $187 per square foot ($499,000 list price). This home features radiant floor heating, stamped concrete floors, 2 stacked rock fire places, 3 bdrms, 2 baths, plus an office. Click here to view more information on this property I’ll be posting future updates on market conditions in Ranches of Sonterra, along with other areas, so check back often.

If you would like to receive a list of all properties for sale in Ranches of Sontera, please contact me, or email mary@ruidoso-homes.com or call or text me at 575-937-5229.

In a mountainous resort area like Ruidoso, you would think that log homes would be very common, but this is not the case. There are many log sided and cedar sided homes, but true log homes are few and far between. This was brought to my attention a few weeks ago, when I had some customers looking for a log home within close proximity to Ruidoso, and only a few listings matched their criteria. Out of 522 single family homes listed in Ruidoso, Alto, Ruidoso Downs and Capitan, only 18 listings were log. This represents just 3% of the listed properties.

The prices of the currently listed log homes ranged from $179,000 to $1.3 million depending on size, style, location and acreage. These homes range from 1250 sq ft on 1/2 acre to a 3,100 sq ft home on 11 acres. There are two basic types of log home construction, milled and hand crafted, click here to learn the difference.

Many of the newer, high end log homes are the hand crafted style, and in some cases, they are truly works of art! I had the pleasure of selling one of these beautiful hand crafted homes a couple of years ago, and it was recently featured in Log Home Living Magazine. The current owners use it for a family retreat, and when they are not using it, they rent it out through Condotel as “Panther Lodge”.

If you have always dreamed of owning a log home in the mountains, you may contact me here, and I will email you information on properties that are currently available. If your plan is to build a log home yourself, I also know of some great tracts of land.

This article was recently featured on the Ruidoso Blog

If you are a returning visitor to this blog, you may have noticed that I’ve fallen a bit behind on my postings lately. Like everyone else, I think that I was numbed by the circumstances over the last several months, and I really did not know what to write about because circumstances were changing daily. The stock market, the economy, the new administration… there are so many changes occurring all over the country. It’s interesting however, that Ruidoso always seems to stay the same, regardless of what is happening in the outside world. In Ruidoso, we still hope for snow to make the skiers happy, we still watch for deer crossing the road, we still go to Casa Blanca for our fried green chile strips and margaritas.

Now here we are, already starting FEBRUARY in a brand NEW YEAR! Where the heck did January go??? I’m sure some of you are wondering where the Ruidoso real estate market stands in the midst of all the doom and gloom that we hear on the daily news. Sure we have experienced a slower real estate market over the last year, and even the number of visitors is down a bit (although you would not have known it if you tried to get into a restaurant over the Christmas break).

** UPDATE 06-2010: Statistical data originally shown here has been removed. Please contact me with any questions regarding sales in the Ruidoso area. **

Visit the Ruidoso-blog to read the rest of this entry.

If you have questions or would like more specific information on Ruidoso, email me at mary@ruidoso-homes.com, or call 575-937-5229.