A peek at the most expensive home sold in Summit County in 2023 — and trends for luxury real estate sales

The three most expensive home sales in Summit County in 2023 sold for a combined $25.4 million, nearly half of which was just for one home. 

The top seller this past year was a 6,200-square-foot, ski-in-ski-out residence on Snowy Ridge Road in Breckenridge, which sold for $12 million. Longtime Summit County broker Tom Day clinched the sale, which marks one of the largest in the county’s history. 

The most expensive home sale to date was a $17-million-dollar property on Timber Trail Road in Breckenridge that sold in June 2021. Though a staggering price, Day said that elsewhere in the state such properties could sell for far more. 

“You go to Vail, you go to Aspen and you see homes like this selling for $30, $40, $50 million,” Day said. 

Home sales across the board have risen since the COVID-19 pandemic, even in the luxury market. In 2023, the most expensive home sale in Colorado was a home in Aspen that sold for $76 million. 

“We are going to see these double-digit sales on very high-end homes in the future,” said Dishon Lutz, a Summit County broker and president for the Summit Association of Realtors.

Still, it doesn’t necessarily mean double-digit luxury properties will be abundant, said Dana Cottrell, a realtor for the Summit Resort Group and incoming president of the Colorado Association of Realtors. 

“Prices that high are rare to see anyway,” Cottrell said. “There’s just not that many properties.”

The second- and third-highest selling properties in 2023 sold for $6.9 million and $6.5 million, respectively. 

The $6.9-million property is framed but unfinished and, based on its massive 10,800-square-foot size, will likely increase in value once completed, Cottrell said. 

All three properties’ high-price points could be largely attributed to their proximity to Breckenridge Ski Resort. While the $12-million-dollar home on Snowy Ridge Road is truly ski-in-ski-out, the other two homes, located in the Shock Hill subdivision, are within walking distance to the BreckConnect Gondola. 

“The old saying, location, location, location. The top sale is a house you can ski out the door,” Cottrell said. “People pay for convenience.”

It’s likely a leading factor for why the Breckenridge area sees the most expensive home sales of anywhere in the county year over year. Of the top 20 highest sales in 2023, 15 were in Breckenridge, Cottrell said. 

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While these homes can be highly desirable, such properties usually take longer to sell. 

The $12-million-dollar Snowy Ridge home, for example, sat on the market for 760 days and eventually sold for more than $2 million below its original listing price, which was $14,450,050. Currently, the most expensive home by listing is $19,000,000 million and has been on the market for more than 1,200 days, according to Cottrell. 

“Usually, the higher the price range, the fewer the buyers you have,” Cottrell said, so homes can sit on the market longer. 

Lutz, the Summit Association of Realtors president, said the county’s status as a vacation-home destination means there will always be demand for such extravagant homes. 

And with the top sale failing to exceed the $17-million-dollar record set in 2021, coming in at $5 million below that, even luxury real estate may be feeling the impacts of a shifting market that has seen record-high home prices soften this past year.

For the first time in more than a decade, the average price for a single-family home dropped, though prices still remain historically high. 

“Despite it being something that is intimidating for a local buyer, it’s also a great sign that the market is kind of leveling out a bit too,” Lutz said.