Market Balance
A descriptive blend of the two inputs below — not an index.
Strong buyer's market
8.5 months of inventory · 0.20 under contract per active
Region rollup
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
Estes Valley Observations — Wednesday, August 19, 2026
The Mayo Report
Edition: Aug 19, 2026
A newer edition is overdue — this note last covered Aug 19, 2026.
Closings in the Estes Valley are running behind last year: 3 homes over the past seven days, against 7 in the same week a year ago. On Wednesday, August 19, 2026 itself, 1 home closed and 1 listing came on. 277 listings are active.
Counts from daily aggregates. No cause is inferred, and no individual listing is described. Figures as reported August 20, 2026.
Past editions →Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
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Where the value sits
Rocky Mountain National Park and Lake Estes outlines are decorative, for orientation only: US Census Bureau TIGERweb (public domain).
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
Year over year
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
Seasonality
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
Active inventory mix
By price band, then by property type.
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
Supply and demand by price band
Region-wide · residential onlyBar is months of inventory — how long the band's active listings would last at the past year's pace of closings. The vertical line marks six months, the conventional balance point: longer favours buyers, shorter favours sellers.
Bands are set on each listing's own price — what a closing sold for, what an active listing asks. Residential property only: land and commercial are excluded, since a building lot in the lowest band would move it away from anything a homebuyer would recognise. Published region-wide only — per-ZIP price bands leave too few listings in most cells to report.
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
Estes Park among mountain-resort markets
Source: Zillow ZHVI via Lotvox national databaseAn editorial peer set of US mountain-resort markets — towns whose housing market is dominated by a destination resort economy, chosen by hand across nine states. It is not derived from the data: this database holds no elevation or resort attribute, and a behavioural definition was tested and rejected.
Estes Park is the value end of this group — about 42% below the cohort's median home value, with 3 of 16 peers cheaper still. Buying into a famous mountain market here costs a fraction of what it costs in the names above it.
Typical home value is the Zillow Home Value Index for each ZIP, as of 2026-06-30. Appreciation is measured over the ten years from 2016-06-30 — the longest window every market in this group shares, since the index begins at different dates in different places. Ranked among the 17 markets listed above and no others.
By ZIP code
80510
Allenspark · Boulder County
Too few reportable months to chart a trend — 5 of 24 months clear the 3-sale minimum.
Explore 80510 on Lotvox →Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
80511
Dacono · Larimer County
Not enough records to report (2 of 3 minimum). Metrics are withheld rather than estimated.
Too few closings here to report sale-price behaviour. Counts are shown; ratios are withheld.
Too few reportable months to chart a trend — 0 of 2 months clear the 3-sale minimum.
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
80515
Drake · Larimer County
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
80517
Estes Park · Larimer County
Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
80532
Glen Haven · Larimer County
Too few reportable months to chart a trend — 4 of 24 months clear the 3-sale minimum.
Explore 80532 on Lotvox →Data courtesy of IRES as distributed by MLS Grid as of Sep 9, 2026, 5:13 PM MDT
County records
Larimer County parcels
Source: Larimer County records via Lotvox4 of 5 region ZIPs; Allenspark (80510) is Boulder County and is not in the Larimer record.
Trust-held and company-held are reported separately and are not added together — a family trust is estate planning, not investment.
Where out-of-state owners live
2.5% of parcels changed hands in 2025 (246 recorded sales against 9,632 parcels).
Log scale: equal vertical distance is equal percentage change. Values peaked in 2006, fell 8.0% to a 2010 low, then rose 150% through 2025. 2025 was down 2.4% on the year. 2026 is dashed and provisional — the county is still recording it.
Bailey-Muth-Nourse repeat-sales regression, unweighted. Each observation is one parcel sold twice, so composition cannot move the index — unlike a median sale price. 9,396 of 10,024 resale pairs used; 628 excluded (annualised move outside -30%..+40% excluded as non-market transfer or data error). Series begins 1992: Larimer recording coverage steps up sharply that year (Estes priced deeds 1991=176, 1992=593), so earlier years are not comparable. Repeat-sales indices do not adjust for renovation, so improvement between two sales is counted as appreciation.
51% of Estes Valley owners are still here ten years after they buy.
Kaplan-Meier. Holds still running are right-censored at today rather than dropped, so an owner who has held 20 years and has not sold still counts. 7,591 of 18,357 holds (41.4%) are still running and are counted this way. Counting only holds that have already ended would put the median at 5.6 years instead of 10.3 — the holds still in progress are disproportionately the long ones. Deeds from 1992 onward; a hold is measured between recorded sales, so an unpriced transfer into a family trust does not end one.
Source: Larimer County records via Lotvox. Assessor and recorder data; counts are of parcels, not households. Recording lags mean recent quarters are incomplete.