Louisville’s allure

In an environment of decreasing property values, brokers say that steady appreciation in Louisville and nearby Superior can be attributed to three factors: housing supply, location and city services, including the availability of parking.

In May, the Boulder County assessor’s office reported that Louisville’s residential property value had increased by 1.4 percent. Superior’s number was even better, 4.2 percent. This contrasted with Boulder County’s aggregate total property value decrease of 2.7 percent in the two-year reappraisal period.

Boulder County officials said that over the two-year period, residential properties located in Louisville and Superior gained the most in market value, while properties in certain neighborhoods in Longmont, Erie and Niwot declined the most in market value.

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Housing supplies down

In Louisville, as in Superior, low housing inventories and high demand are keeping prices stable — and climbing.

Rick Staufer, broker associate/owner of Staufer Team Real Estate in Louisville, said that in Superior, there has been a drop in inventory since 2007. “Approximately 40 percent of the homes currently on the market are under contract,” he said. “This is an indication of how brisk the market is right now. When you have low inventory in relation to demand, prices (valuations) go up.”

Staufer pointed out that nothing has replaced Rock Creek, a master-planned community in Superior with 2,804 homes. Rock Creek broke ground in 1987 and was finished in 2004. “There are no new single-family homes being built in Superior,” he said.

A global research and training center planned by ConocoPhillips in Louisville that would generate 7,000 jobs would be a positive thing for valuation too, causing a spike in housing prices, Staufer said.

Jeanette Buckingham, owner of Buckingham Realty Group, said that in Louisville, too, inventory is low. “We have extremely limited growth, but what’s here has been here for a long time.”

The demand for new in Louisville is high, Buckingham said. The Steel Ranch project, single-family and patio homes planned to break ground in the spring on the west side of Colo. Highway 42, north of South Boulder Road and south of Paschal Drive, will be “absorbed seamlessly. But right now, when people want a new home, they can’t find it in Louisville,” she said.

Current residents as well as buyers from out of town are clamoring for homes in Louisville with the newest features, including “green” construction, she said.

Steel Ranch will add only a few more hundred homes to the inventory. While she’s excited to have something new for buyers, Buckingham pointed out that little to no construction keeps demand high and prices stable.

Staufer said that “even during the lending meltdown, prices here were stable.” Data from Information and Real Estate Services LLC bares this out, showing that in 2008, when the housing industry elsewhere in the country tanked, the average sales price for a home in Louisville was $332,532; in Superior, it was $402,316. Last year, the average sale price for a home in Louisville was $376,150; in Superior, it was $430,225.

Location and recognition

It sounds like a Chamber of Commerce brochure, but with access to Boulder, Denver, high-tech jobs and the airport, the living, and the working are easier in Louisville and Superior.

Louisville is currently rated a top 100 best city to live in by CNNMoney.com, Jan Baulsir, a broker with Wright Kingdom Real Estate, pointed out. CNNMoney.com talks about the great schools, the Rocky Mountains, the six miles to Boulder and 25 to Denver, and the 300 days of sunshine.

And, of course, Money magazine ranked Louisville as the No. 1 Best Place to Live among America’s small towns in 2009.

Baulsir thinks a point in Louisville’s and Superior’s favor is the ease of getting to work.

“You have big employers there in Interlocken just 10 minutes down the road (Broomfield) like Cisco Systems, Level 3 Communications, Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corp.),” she said. “It’s a great place to own a home and raise a family. There are open-space pads, access to the outdoors. Kids can ride their bikes on bike trails to their friend’s houses and never have to get on a road. These are all conditions of a healthy community.”

City services and parking

Because of her job, Heather Cracraft, a 12-year-resident of Superior, is probably a little biased, but when she moved to the town from Denver, it was for the school district and easy access to Boulder and Denver. She’s stayed not only because she is the executive director for the Superior Chamber of Commerce, but also because “everything you need is within a five-mile radius. There’s great parks and pools. We have great businesses within and without the town boundaries. We have Costco, Super Target and Whole Foods. (And, nearby in Louisville) we have Home Depot and we have (FlatIron Crossing).”

Town-sponsored events are an attraction. Superior’s July 4 celebration feeds 7,000 people pancakes and allows them time to rest before heading off to Boulder for fireworks. The Chili Fest in September lets cooks qualify for national competitions and gives local venders and musicians a chance to shine. In May, there’s a two-day bike ride, the Superior Morgul Classic.

Cracraft thinks Superior is attractive because of all of these things. She also points out that its proximity to Boulder, where the average sale price for a home is more expensive (in December 2010, $619,964 according to Information and Real Estate Services), makes people want to move to Superior.

The “less-expensive-housing-than-Boulder” factor came up again with Staufer of Staufer Team Real Estate who said that some of his buyers who end up in Superior really want to live in Boulder. “And then Louisville. While Superior is not No. 1 on the radar, they get introduced to Superior because they can’t afford Louisville and Boulder. People quickly find more house for their money in Superior.”

Let’s not forget the parking. After all, Americans collectively spend more than 500 million hours in their cars each week, according to the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a think tank that supplies data to the Department of Transportation, and who wants to spend more than that?

Again, comparing Superior and Louisville to Boulder, “There are no parking meters downtown,” Goodacre pointed out.

“In Louisville, they do have two-hour parking signs,” Buckingham of Buckingham Realty Group said, “but underground parking is free.”