Over $1 billion in real estate was sold in 2008, according to the year-end report from the Park City Board of Realtors.

That’s nothing to shake a stick at. It’s only been since 2004 that sales that high have been achieved in Summit County.

The number of transactions, however, was so low mostly due to the fourth quarter that the last comparable year was 1992, said board president Lincoln Calder.

The bad news

For Realtors who depend on quantity of sales for their living, like those who specialize in condo or land sales, it’s a perfect storm.

Homeowners in the Park City area typically made their purchase as an investment. They aren’t foreclosing, aren’t interested in selling it cheap and are more than willing to wait until the economy improves, explained Jim Lewis of Summit Sotheby’s.

Shoppers used to seeing real estate markets crash in their hometowns, come to Park City hoping to find similar deals in a highly desirable location. They know they can get a lot for their money in this economy and are looking to make a killing.

The result is deadlock.

“It’s like a big hand came to Park City real estate and turned the faucet 95 percent off,” said Jess Reid of Jess Reid Real Estate.

Volume is down 40 to 50 percent all over the area. Land sales are even worse, Calder said.

The good news

The Catch-22 for a Realtor, however, is that freezing of the transactions is keeping prices up, protecting the success of the market in the future.

Median sales prices for the area were decent for 2008. Some areas even saw increases such as the East Side and Old Town. Except for the far West Side, sales prices stayed pretty level.

For Realtors specializing in high-end properties, that’s very good news.

“It’s frozen, but it will thaw out. It’s always darkest before the dawn and it’s pretty dark now,” Lewis said.

The Utah economy is strong, Park City is still the best resort town with easy access to an international airport, and new resorts like St. Regis and Dakota Mountain Lodge are making it an even more desirable destination, Calder said.

“The fundamentals are still really good,” he said.

The irony is that if more transactions were taking place, they would likely be preceded by fierce negotiations and sellers making concessions, Reid said.

“If buyers weren’t frozen, you’d have seen that average price go down,” he explained.

Park City is in good shape long-term, Calder concluded.

The future

The lubricant needed to loosen up this frozen market is confidence, Reid said.

He thinks the buyer/seller disconnect is merely a symptom of the larger problem: people are still scared.

There are great buyers out there with money to spend and credit to get loans, but they want to see the market bottom out before they buy.

The shoppers are coming. Activity levels at Reid’s branch offices where agents try to entice walk-ins are actually higher than a year ago. But the shoppers tell agents they’re waiting.

The most affected niche in the real estate market as far as sales volume and median sale price is single-family lots. With all the caution and bank turmoil, no one is interested in starting a new project, Lewis said.

People want the most for their money, so they’re making offers on newer, nicer properties than they would have in a different economy, Calder explained. Why invest in a “fixer-upper” when the same money can buy a nice home?

But Calder and the two brokers all see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Portions of the bailout plans and stimulus packages will put money in mortgage markets making it easier for interested buyers to get loans, Calder said.

Lewis thinks people will start to realize that the market is as low as it’s going to get here and will start taking advantage of it.

“Careful is not the same as scared. The ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ people might miss out on good buys,” he said.

People sit around bars in Park City talking about how they should have bought land when it was only $5,000. But people were scared then too. It’s no different now, he said.

Reid said the bottom has already been reached. As far as he can see, persistent trouble in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada are perpetuating the fear. If a savvy shopper looks at the rest of the country, they’ll see prices are as low as they’re going to go, and recovery is looming.

“I’m seeing the market going from being stuck to picking up in small increments,” he said.

Property taxes

People who use the Board of Realtors report to request lower property taxes should be aware that the county does its appraising differently, said senior appraiser Steve Martin.

The board groups its statistics according to 41 designated neighborhoods. The county gathers information from additional sources and classifies neighborhoods much more exclusively. For example, two streets may look close together on a map, but if one is at the bottom of a hill and the other is at the top, the county will consider them different neighborhoods.

The Board of Realtors report is useful for understanding trends in the real estate market, but actual home prices are extremely volatile depending on the size, age and location of a home, Martin said.

“We try to adjust groups of properties we’re hoping react the same,” he explained. “What might affect one market, might not affect another.”