The headlines are out there: "Aspen Real Estate not Selling Like it Used To!" "Worst year for Colorado Real Estate in a half-decade!"
I'm here to tell you, it's all true. The previous four years' real estate sales each outstripped 2026 in both dollar volume and units sold. The Aspen market is pulling back.
Now let's flip the telescope and view it through a more perceptive lens. The previous four years were Aspen's greatest ever consecutive 4 years of real estate sales volume and units sold in history! Sales in 2026 aren't on the same white-hot blistering pace, but what the bombastic headlines and the-end-is-nigh "news" articles don't tell you is...
The average $/ft is still climbing. The rapid appreciation of the post-covid era has corrected into less-volatile, more stable and steady growth.
Sellers are holding firm to pricing expectations established in 2021–2022 while buyers have more options, more leverage, and are showing a willingness to wait.
Properties that are trophy, turnkey, ski-adjacent, with views, or in top-tier locations will continue to move quickly at propelled valuations.
Properties that are perceived as stale or poorly-located are seeing meaningful price updates.
Those in the middle are being heavily-scrutinized by buyers with time to carefully analyze the market and negotiate with leverage. Values continue to go up, but the mad-dash scramble of the post-covid era is over and buyers are enjoying some strength in negotiations.
When people ask me THE question, "What's going on in the market?", My answer is that within Aspen's resilient structure, we're in a phase of Buyer Strength for the first time in half-decade. Take advantage.