Starter homes hard to find in Larimer County

Defining a ?starter home? is fairly easy, but finding them in some parts of Northern Colorado is hard.
?A starter home is your first house,? said Larry Kendall, owner of The Group in Fort Collins. ?People live in them two, three, maybe four years. It is not their Dream Home. It?s just something to get them out of the rental market.?
Finding an affordable starter home can be difficult. ?Below the $170s in Fort Collins ? they just don?t exist,? said Jim Hauan, a broker associate for The Group.
That?s the situation for single-family-detached housing, but there are other options. One is the condominium and another is the townhouse. Julie Smith, the program administrator for the First Time Homebuyers Program, said that for the most part in Fort Collins, the starter home market consists mainly of condos and townhomes.
Joe Rowan, loan programs manager for Funding Partners for Housing Solutions Inc. in Fort Collins, agrees with Hauan?s assessment ? up to a point. ?In Fort Collins proper, yes,? Bennett said. But he said there are still some neighborhoods where you might find something affordable as a starter home: Springfield, Westfield, Mountain Range Shadows, Water Glen, Provincetown. ?They?re not brand-new, but they still provide plenty of opportunity,? said Sara Bennett a broker for Re/Max Advanced Inc. in Fort Collins.
It?s tough to pin down a starter home on a price range because, Realtors say, it all depends on what you can afford. Kendall said he?s seen some in the $300,000 range. Bennett would describe a starter home as anything that runs below $200,000. Rowan said that if you take a Larimer County family of four making the average annual wage, have a 30-year fixed mortgage and 7 percent interest on their mortgage payments, they should be able to afford a house between $165,000 and $175,000. In Weld County, they should be able to afford a house between $140,000 and $150,000.
Nate Buie, broker with The Group Inc. in Greeley, said a recent International Real Estate Services study put the average home price in Loveland at $254,000. The average home price in Fort Collins is $232,000, and the average home price in Greeley is $182,000.
With that in mind, when seeking a starter home in the Larimer-Weld county area, Weld County wins most every time. Houses are simply cheaper in places such as Greeley or the Del Camino area in the southwestern section of the county, mostly because Weld County is primarily agricultural and wages are generally less than in Larimer County.
One example of a Weld County community that?s seeing an increasing number of starter homes is Severance, which only 10 years ago was little more than a wide spot in the road. ?They are having some big housing developments move in, ?Rowan said. ?They have some $100,000 houses and $300,000 houses. It used to be nothing but a restaurant that served Rocky Mountain Oysters.?
?In Greeley, you can get a first-time home between $145,000 and $170,000,? Buie said. ?If you look at the market a little east from Fort Collins to Greeley, you can get brand-new for the same price you could for existing. Greeley has the least amount of variance between new construction and existing construction among Greeley, Fort Collins and Loveland. In Fort Collins, it?s $40,000. Greeley is half of that.?
If you are set on living in Larimer County, a good place to look is Wellington. ?There is some new construction in Wellington that is a great buy right now,? Bennett said. ?Great homes.?
Hauan, who sells homes in the new Buffalo Creek subdivision in Wellington, is especially high on the area. ?You can go 10 miles out of town and for the same price as an older home, you can get all new stuff,? he said.
For anyone looking to get out of the rental market into a house, Smith has the following advice: ?If there is anything I want people to do, it?s go and visit a mortgage lender and see what they are eligible for,? she said. ?It might be for more than they think.?
After that, the biggest and most daunting problem is raising the down payment and closing costs. But Smith said there are many resources to help overcome that obstacle. The city of Fort Collins, for example, has a program that can provide up to $9,576 in federal loans to go toward a down payment and closing costs. For more information, visit fcgovvom.com/affordablehousing/hba.php, or call (970) 221-6376.
Larimer County has the Housing Authority and the LHOP program, which has somewhat similar provisions. More information is available at lovelandhsg.org/lkop.htm or (970) 667-3232.
Another program is House to Home, which is an equity-sharing program using state funds that has been around for six years. House to Home offers a balloon payment toward the down payment that amounts to up to 5 percent of the purchase price. Visit fundingpartners.com or call (970) 494-2091 for more details.
In addition, Habitat for Humanity is building starter homes for low-income residents in both counties. Call (970) 223-4522 for more information.