Real Estate & Construction  June 2, 2016

Buyers finding mosh-pit market in Northern Colorado

A surging crowd of assertive customers. Tight spaces. High energy.

At a rock concert, you’d be describing all the ingredients for a mosh pit. Across Northern Colorado, we’re talking about the ingredients for a super-charged housing market, in which multiple buyers are consistently clashing to buy the same house.

With an economy that continues to grow at a rate that exceeds national averages, demand for housing on the northern Front Range keeps trending up, even as the supply of homes for sale is shrinking.  In fact, inventory for April totaled just 1,354 across the region, down 17 percent from last year and down 30 percent from 1,712 in April 2014.

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The consequences for would-be buyers are jarring, even if they’re no longer surprising. Here’s a look at some of the regional ramifications of a mosh-pit market:

• Even while demand is sizzling, the number of homes sold in Northern Colorado cooled off, falling 7.8 percent from April 2015 to April 2016.

• Remember what we just said about demand? It was enough to push home prices up by 10.53 percent on average in April, up from $307,048 in April 2015 to $339,380 this year.

• Wellington, fast becoming a hot alternative to Fort Collins, saw average prices reach $306,103 last month. That’s more than the average price in Fort Collins was just two years ago at this time.

• Only one of Northern Colorado’s submarkets registered average prices under $300,000 in April. Greeley/Evans checked in at $248,663.

• Every submarket except Windsor/Severance saw average prices climb at least 18 percent between April 2014 and April 2016. For Windsor/Severance, the average increase was 17 percent.

Examining each community, here’s what we see for how housing sales added up in each sub-market during April:

Ault/Eaton/Johnstown/Kersey/La Salle/Mead/Milliken: As a group, these outlying communities reported an average sales price of $318,737, up 8.2 percent from the previous April. The number of sales dropped to 82, down 18.9 percent.

Estes Park: Windsor/Severance isn’t alone in the $400,000 neighborhood. Estes Park reported an average sale price of $400,441 last month, a whopping 31 percent increase over April 2015. But like the rest of region, actual sales declined from a year ago, to 29 from 34 in April 2015.

Fort Collins/Wellington/Timnath: Average prices in Fort Collins hit $372,158 in April, up 12.9 percent from last year and 27.6 percent over two years. Nevertheless, total sales slipped for the fourth consecutive month, with 291 closings in April. That’s down 18.2 percent from April 2015.

Greeley/Evans: Sales were down 7.5 percent from last April to 221. At the same time, average prices climbed 10 percent over the 12-month period, and 21.9 percent over two years.

Longmont: Total sales ticked up slightly across the Longmont area, increasing 5.8 percent to 145. At the same time, average prices took a much higher jump of 13.3 percent to $380,498.

Loveland/Berthoud: A rare case of sales growth, with 186 homes closed in April, a gain of 22.4 percent over April 2015. Compared with the rest of the region, Loveland/Berthoud also witnessed a relatively modest average price increase, up 6.5 percent to $340,205. Still, over two years the average price is up 21.6 percent.

Windsor/Severance: Windsor/Severance continues to be the area’s highest-priced submarket, with an average sale price of $406,814 in April. Total sales dipped by 24.7 percent from April 2015.

Larry Kendall co-founded associate-owned The Group Inc. Real Estate in 1976 and is creator of Ninja Selling. Contact him at 970-229-0700 or via www.thegroupinc.com.

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