“We’ve always been countercyclical to what’s happening nationally,” said James Pulsipher, vice president of Fidelity Mortgage in Grand Junction.

The national slowdown in real estate was documented recently by the National Association of Realtors, which said the median sales price of existing homes nationally fell 1.7 percent in August from the same time a year earlier, to $225,000. At the same time, the inventory of unsold homes increased by 1.5 percent in August.

Locally, market indicators are moving in the other direction, and conditions are putting upward pressure on prices, said Sandy Barger, co-owner of Advanced Realty and a member of the board of directors for the Grand Junction Area Realtor Association.

Year-to-date through mid-September, 4,213 residential units were sold in Mesa County, according to Barger. That number is up slightly from 4,202 residential units sold through the same time last year and indicates that demand for homes remains strong.

However, the number of residential units listed for sale this year is down more than 19 percent from the same time last year, she said. Through mid-September last year, 5,265 units had been listed for sale in Mesa County; this year, only 4,242 units have been listed.

Together, steady demand from buyers and the smaller supply of homes on the market have driven the average sale price up by almost 11 percent in the past year, Barger said. Currently, the average sale price for a home in Mesa County is $211,280, up from $190,495 a year ago, she said.

The demand for homes in Mesa County comes from a variety of sources, Barger said.

“It’s not really all the oil boom,” she said. “Our unemployment rate is down. People moving in have jobs when they get here, typically.”

She said the medical industry is a big attraction for new arrivals. With hospitals in Grand Junction, Delta and Montrose expanding to serve the area’s growing population, medical professionals are moving to west-central Colorado from other places to work.

In addition, many new residents in Mesa County are coming from larger cities throughout the country, looking for better quality of life, she said.

“We’ve got (clients) from Wisconsin to California. We probably have a higher percentage coming from the West Coast,” she said.

Another trend that illustrates the health of the local real estate market is the declining number of foreclosures. Mesa County Public Trustee Barbara Brewer said that through the first nine months of 2006, a total of 269 foreclosures were filed with her office. That’s a 10 percent drop from the same time a year ago.

In contrast, the Denver area has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, Brewer said. In many cases on the Front Range, homeowners are being caught by large increases in the payments they must make on their adjustable-rate mortgages.

“Statewide, it’s very bleak,” she said.

Brewer credited the larger paychecks in the oil and gas industry for driving down the foreclosure rate in Mesa County.

“People are making more money than they have been. Their salaries are up,” she said.

Rising wages help Mesa County residents who used adjustable-rate mortgages to buy their homes keep up with increasing payments.

“Even as adjustable-rate mortgages go up, people are making more money, and they’re able to take that hit,” Brewer said. Still, she said she expects more homeowners to feel financial pressure if mortgage interest rates continue rising.

“I would encourage people, if they have adjustable-rate mortgages, to check out converting that to a 30-year fixed (rate) if they’re going to be in that home for any length of time,” she said.

Pulsipher, of Fidelity Mortgage, said that in the Grand Junction area, mortgage brokers have generally done a good job of properly evaluating buyers’ ability to pay and offering them financing they can afford. Still, he said, some buyers may find themselves having to adjust their household budgets to accommodate rising mortgage payments as interest rates increase.

The strong rate of home-price appreciation and the fact that demand for homes remains strong in Mesa County are helping people whose homes have fallen into foreclosure.

“Values have gone up aggressively, so if someone gets in trouble, they can sell more easily and get out of it,” Pulsipher said.

Brewer said the rate at which homeowners facing foreclosure are able to redeem the loan — that is, pay off the balance by either getting another loan or selling the property during the 75-day redemption period — remains strong.

“If we were in a down market, they wouldn’t be able to turn their home so quickly,” she said.

Barger said even in the face of a national housing slowdown, she doesn’t expect the local real-estate market to falter any time soon. Mesa County’s economy seems to be in a long-term growth trend that will last at least another five years, she said.

Bob Kretschman can be reached via e-mail at bobk@bresnan.net.