Group: Real estate picture bright for 2006

LOVELAND – Members of the Northern Colorado real estate community yearning for good news about the year ahead got it in spades Monday night during The Group Inc. Real Estate’s annual forecast.

The nearly 3,000 faithful who gathered at the Budweiser Events Center heard a characteristically upbeat outlook from Group Chairman Larry Kendall, a forecast that was bolstered by predictions from one of the nation’s most prominent real estate economists.

Continued low mortgage interest rates, new jobs, population growth and market demographics would keep the region’s real estate market humming, said David Lereah, the Washington, D.C.-based chief economist for the National Association…