Steamboat Springs’ real estate market still is in recovery, but single-family homes that are attainable for working families are not abundant.

The 47 unsold home lots in Barn Village at Steamboat will return to the active real estate market at reduced prices in early May.

Elk River Guest Ranch access includes one-third of a mile of river access for trout fishing, 900 feet shared with five adjacent lots and another 900 feet that is exclusive to the guest ranch.

One of the first things that SF Capital principal Will Stolz did after his company purchased 19 Marabou Ranch estate lots this month for a little more than $12 million was to direct Marabou sales executive John Hillenbrand to remove them from the Steamboat Springs multiple listing service.

The first three months of 2013 already have seen some eye-catching activity at both extremes of the market.

As they did in December 2010, the luxury condominium projects completed in 2008 and 2009 in downtown Steamboat Springs have enjoyed a burst of activity this winter.

Some eyebrows might have raised this week when Penny’s Diner and the nearby Oak Tree Inn in the small South Routt town of Yampa sold for nearly $2.5 million.

Broker/owners Kimberly Kreissig and Stephan Baden, who have a combined 43 years of experience in real estate, have opened their office at 155 Anglers Drive between town and the mountain.

Construction workers toiled through the weekend of Feb. 9 and 10 to complete the roof on Casey’s Pond Senior Living community near the south entrance to the city of Steamboat Springs, and with windows being installed at a brisk pace, the day when the project will be heated is coming near.

Realtor Chris Paoli cites data that reveal fewer listings, a decline in foreclosure notices and homes selling well below their replacement cost.

One of Steamboat’s venerable resort condominium buildings in the heart of the ski base is on schedule for a million-dollar exterior renovation this summer.

The recovery in Routt County and Steamboat’s homebuilding market has been a little like climbing a set of stairs — one step at a time.

Changes are afoot at Wildhorse Meadows, a residential development near the Meadows Parking Lot, and Wildhorse Marketplace, a separate commercial development farther south on Mount Werner Road. One of the results could be more than 12,000 square feet of new office space.

The Steamboat Springs City Council will meet for the first time in the New Year on Tuesday and consider approving a new 42-apartment building at Whistler Road and Sky View Terrace.

With the sales of 10 luxury townhomes in three projects at the base of the ski area totaling $10.8 million in the second half of 2012, that segment of the Steamboat market has seen bank-owned properties come off the multiple listing service, signaling they could be entering a new phase where relative scarcity of product and market sales begin to move prices upward.

Prices paid per square foot for Trailhead Lodge condos during the Dec. 15 auction began at $259 for a pair of one-bedroom units on the second floor.

Unofficially, 13 homes in Routt County have sold this month for prices between $400,000 and $600,000.

As the Routt County Regional Building Department closes another year, small changes are afoot.

Robin and Heather Craigen have moved a lot of mountains on behalf of their guests since they first introduced their concept to the Steamboat market 15 years ago of fully catered vacations.

The last time Routt County saw more than $40 million in October real estate dollars was in 2008, when it crested $49,600, according to Stan Urban, of Land Title Guarantee Co.

Steamboat Ski Area will unveil horse-drawn sleigh rides at the city-owned Haymaker Golf Course this winter.

Residents of the Tree Haus subdivision always take the best photographs of fireworks over Steamboat Ski Area, rainbows in front of Thunderhead and alpenglow on Storm Peak.

Kim and Peter Kreissig are bringing back the rarest of real estate species in the Steamboat Springs real estate market: new spec duplex townhomes. Perhaps most significant, they have encouragement in the form of a buyer suggesting they might have tapped into a product category that is readying for a comeback.

Can a classic but dated ski chalet built circa 1972 in one of Steamboat’s most exclusive neighborhoods sell for more than $1 million? Realtor Cam Boyd, of Prudential Steamboat Realty, and his clients are testing that hypothesis as Steamboat Ski Area gets ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The pending sale at Boulder Ridge confirms the developers’ conviction that there is a market for new homes in the price point between $1 million and $2 million.

One Steamboat Place, the luxury condominium project at the base of Steamboat Ski Area, entered September with $46 million in sales in the preceding 12 months and $27 million year-to-date when pending contracts are taken into consideration.

Steamboat Realtors reached out to reality TV star and former Steamboat resident Ryan Serhant to see whether he would be interested in generating publicity to help market his parents' home.

The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors told a Steamboat audience Thursday that whoever becomes the next president of the United States, whether it’s President Barack Obama or President Mitt Romney, will be a lucky man, indeed.

The 2012 Steamboat Springs Parade of Homes, presented by Colorado Group Realty, will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. 

The closings of sales involving 15 condominiums in Trailhead Lodge last month helped put the Routt County real estate market in the pink for June when dollar volume of $65.4 million was up 64.57 percent from June 2011, when it was $39.7 million.

Total dollar volume and the number of transactions through the first six months of 2012 are up from 2011. However, the number of listings is higher, and the average transaction price is lower.

Within specific price points and product categories, there are signs the Routt County real estate market is turning. The change is particularly evident in the city of Steamboat Springs.

The Strings Kitchen and Garden Tour has developed into the top fundraiser for the Guild of Strings Music Festival as well as the best opportunity for the public to glimpse some of the finest homes in Steamboat.

The last week in June and the first week in July brought the sudden sale of four new-construction townhomes in Eco Corral in the Hilltop and Tamarack neighborhood of Steamboat Springs.

Spring and early summer 2012 have marked an interesting time at the Marabou Ranch luxury land preservation subdivision west of Steamboat.

The sale of a $1.87 million condominium at One Steamboat Place on Friday put the finishing touches on the real estate month of June 2012. And if anything, this was a month when Realtors didn’t have to worry about carrying an umbrella in the car for their clients.

The first flight from Tokyo’s Narita International Airport to Denver International Airport may not come packed with eager Asian buyers for ski town real estate. But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Members of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority board said this week that they would like to learn more about a proposal from Brent Pearson, of Resort Ventures West, to tap into federal tax credits that could help a third-party developer build out the remaining affordable housing units in Wildhorse Meadows.

A skier’s dozen of the Trailhead Lodge condominiums near the base of Steamboat Ski Area that sold at auction May 6 in Denver have closed in a flurry this week at prices ranging from $215,000 to $650,000.

The most-asked question fielded by Realtors in Steamboat Springs is, without a doubt, “When will the market recover?” 

The answer often is that the local real estate market appears to have hit bottom and will recover gradually within niche products and price points.

Dozens of Routt County homeowners have taken advantage of the federal Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, to make it easier to remain in their underwater homes. And more are exploring that option daily, according to a Steamboat Springs mortgage lender. 

Historically low interest rates and depressed housing prices have reopened the opportunity for successful working families with great credit ratings to purchase a home in or very close to the city of Steamboat Springs. But there are signs that the inventory of those single-family homes is dwindling.

Steamboat Springs and Routt County officials are inviting residents to play a high-stakes poker game that could influence how the city and surrounding land in the county are developed in the future. But it’s not like it sounds.

In a sign of the times, Tom Fox received 52 applications when his company, Fox Construction, ran a classified newspaper ad this spring seeking to hire a project manager and estimator.

Routt County’s year-to-date average home price is down from $631,224 in 2011, according to Brooke Roberts, Land Title’s director of sales and marketing in the company’s Breckenridge office.

The physical evidence won’t be visible for a little while, but there are increasingly positive signs of new activity in commercial construction and leasing as well as multifamily development.

The neighborhoods around the base of Steamboat Ski Area accounted for the bulk of real estate transactions and dollar volume in the first quarter of 2012, as they typically do. But the South Routt market — excluding Stagecoach, Oak Creek and Phippsburg — showed some surprising strength. 

When Steamboat’s real estate market finally regains its equilibrium, the demand for affordable housing may see increased emphasis on rentals versus home ownership.

A downward trend in foreclosure filings and an uptick in the median home price in Routt County could be signs of stability returning to the local real estate market, but the number of transactions involving bank-owned properties continues to slow turnover in the market