Real Estate Transfer Taxes Generated $24M for Aspen in 2024
The city of Aspen collected nearly $24 million in taxes paid at the closing of 638 free-market real estate deals in 2024, according to a report issued this week.
The figure achieved neither new heights nor dubious distinctions, settling in at 4% ahead of the city’s haul of $22.9 million on 603 transactions in 2023.
Buyers of free-market real estate within city limits pay a 1.5% real estate transfer tax, or RETT, at closing. The RETT is paid on sales of commercial and residential real estate, with some exceptions granted. Roughly two-thirds of RETT collections support municipal housing funds and the remaining one-third supports the city-owned Opera House and Red Brick Center for the Arts.
RETT collections of $23.9 million beat the city’s budgeted amount of $19.4 million for 2024, the report said. From those collections, $15.8 million will fund housing and $8.1 million for arts and culture, according to city Finance Director Pete Strecker.
Revenue generated from the RETT in 2024 dwarfed the amounts the city received in the two calendar years before the pandemic.
In 2019, the last full-calendar year before the arrival of the global COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the city received $12.8 million in RETT collections. The figure in 2018 was $13.5 million.
The pandemic-fueled real estate boom saw the city realize RETT collections of $25.9 million in 2022, $31.9 million in 2021 and $27.1 million in 2020, based on city financial records.
Aspen’s RETT figures trend similar to overall property sales data.
According to analyses done by Land Title Guarantee, total real estate sales (commercial, residential, agricultural, etc.) amounted to $3.1 billion in 2024 in Pitkin County, trekking ahead of $3 billion in 2023 and behind $3.4 billion in 2022.
The record year of 2021 — the same year Aspen’s RETT standard was set — produced $4.5 billion in total sales volume.
“It’s clear that the Aspen real estate market continues to be strong overall,” said Andrew Ernemann, president of Aspen Snowmass Sotheby’s International Realty, in his annual market report issued last week.
Ernemann noted the second half of 2024 was less active than the first six months of the year, “and there have been some modest trend indicators pointing towards a slowing market, but historically low listing inventory continues to drive prices upward.”
According to data on the website run by Aspen Board of Realtors, the average price paid for a single-family home in Aspen was $18.4 million in 2024, 16% higher than the $15.8 million average in 2023.
“Take a moment to consider just how affluent the ‘average’ buyer for Aspen property is in the context of those prices,” Erneman’s report said. “And keep in mind that just a few short years ago it was unusual for a home to sell north of $20m in Aspen (i.e. pre-2020 there were usually 2-3 sales a year in that price range), and in 2024 there were 31 single family home sales over $20m.”
Recognizing high property prices and their impact on the worker housing market, Aspen voters approved a 1% RETT to address “the issue of the current housing shortage that vacant land and existing buildings must be purchased and renovated and construction of new housing must be commenced immediately.” The 1% RETT took effect July 1, 1989, and sunsets in December 2040.
Voters also approved the 0.5% RETT supporting the Wheeler with a 20-year sunset in May 1978. The Aspen electorate has since approved it through December 2039. In November 2021, voters backed expanding the Wheeler portion of the RETT to include arts programming offered at the Red Brick Center for the Arts. The vote included approval for removal of the city’s $100,000 cap on arts grants from the RETT.
The biggest deal of the year came in April when a single-family home and real estate at 419 Willoughby Way sold for $108 million; the Red Mountain property is on the edge of Aspen city limits.
Not all of the glitzy sales in Pitkin County benefit the city’s RETT coffers, such as the $77 million sale of The Ranch at Owl Creek in 2024. Because it is unincorporated Pitkin County, the property was not subject to the city’s RETT.
By: I Aspen Daily News I January 19, 2025