Facts and Opinions by Kyle Snyder
How the Firestone Explosion Affected Home Prices
1 day ago
by Title Guy
in Real Estate
Last week I was interviewed regarding a sad anniversary in our community. A house exploded in Firestone a year ago due to a gas leak. This story aired last night on the 1 year anniversary of the explosion that killed two men on April 17, 2017.
How the Firestone explosion affected home prices
I am happy to report that there is no discernible impact on housing prices for this neighborhood. This is great news for a community that has already been through so much.
Give me a call if you want the details.
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
720-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Longmont Closed Sales in 1st Quarter 2018 Highest in 11 Years
Results usually don’t match expectations. What result would you expect from having significantly lower inventory this year than last? Fewer sales? I would guess the same since that’s what happened last year and the year before. Year over year inventory has declined in each of the first three months of 2018. Now go figure out how monthly closings are up each month for the same three months with an overall increase of 21.5% more homes closed in the first quarter of 2018 versus 2017.
My first instinct was to pin this phenomenon on new construction. My research says: maybe. In March there were 14 closings listed in IRES of new construction with an average sales price of $467,128, a low price of $390,000, and an average days on market of 210. Still curious, I looked up the number of new home sales since January 1, 2018 and there were 34…nearly the same as the difference between last year’s first quarter sales volume and this year’s. That might be part of the story, but in no way can be all of it since there were 19 new home sales in the 1st quarter of 2017.
The 215 closings in the first quarter of 2018 is the 3rd highest, first quarter total in the past 11 years. If you couple those results with rising prices and interest rates, they are even more eye-catching, so what’s propelling this market? If the velocity were increasing the average days on market wouldn’t have increased for the month and the quarter… so that’s not it. I would’ve expected to see days on market drop to indicate houses are just selling faster.
Residential Sales Stats
March 2018 Longmont Area Sales Statistics (.pdf)
March 2018 Longmont Area Sales Statistics (.pdf)
Let me know if you have an explanation for the higher closing numbers for the year so far. I know a lot of REALTORS® who would say it doesn’t feel like the third busiest first quarter in the past eleven years, but then again, I know a few who would. Now let’s take a look at some other things before I run out of steam.
In the Longmont attached section we see that sales volume is down and prices are up. The high average price for the month is mostly due to the four attached homes that sold for over $400k. They were all new attached homes and the highest priced one sold for $687,444 down in Prospect. That has to be an all-time high for an attached home in Longmont. Somebody look that up and get back to me please.
The Boulder County Plains area is heating up again. They had 11 sales this past month of over $1 million. They also had one sell for over $3 million. That’s pretty hot for any March, let alone one with our low inventory. I also believe that our mild winter has brought buyers out a little earlier than normal. It’s the sellers we need to get with the program to make this a busy year.
Short and sweet this month. I have a rant all teed up for next time. Until then, have a prosperous month.
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
720-534-8355
2017 Longmont Housing Affordability Review Released
1 month ago
The 2017 Longmont Housing Affordability Review has been released. You will notice the measuring stick for affordability has been updated since the market had outpaced our static numbers established in 2013. Yes indeed, prices are going up. New information and studies show that homes are relatively more affordable than in the past. Please read the report here: http://bit.ly/2GbH8LO
For questions, please contact either Kyle Snyder or Amy Aschenbrenner using the information below.
Kyle Snyder
First American Title
303-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Amy Aschenbrenner
Longmont Association of Realtors
303-772-5555
amy@longmontrealtors.com
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
Homebuilding Boom in Berthoud Slows Price Increases
It was almost exactly 1 year ago when we lost data sharing. Ever since, we’ve been comparing 2016 data that included both IRES and REColorado data to 2017 IRES only data. I’m done with that and I’m not holding my breath for it to come back. Data share or the big merger may happen at some point, but I’m moving on. Until further notice I will pull data for the previous month and then pull the same month the previous year. This will give us the best apples to apples look at what’s going on in our market.
I’m in the final stages of the annual Affordability Study. For that supplemental report I’ve pulled both IRES and REColorado data, combined columns, merged the data sets, de-duped and visually inspected the data. The results showed there aren’t enough REColorado-only users in our area to be concerned with this small piece of missing data. About 8 years ago I researched how many Longmont sales were from MetroList only. This was at the height of the recession and before data sharing. At the time, 12% of Longmont listings didn’t show up in IRES – that was a statistically significant amount, so we went out of our way to include them. Last year only 64 or 5.3% of our listings were not listed in IRES. Interestingly, when combining data from both MLS’s, the average home price drops by $2,443 and increases the number of homes sold under $350k (I’m using that metric in the Affordability Study) by 34. So a side note here is that if you are looking for a less expensive home for your clients, don’t forget to check REColorado.
Photo by Michelle Snyder… somewhere in Australia
As far as this month’s data goes, we are still pretty early in the year and there are no real trends that raise concern. At this stage in the year the data set is still so small that small changes can create large percentage changes (check out the Total # Sold-Month for BoCo Plains as an example), so let’s talk more about the numbers next month as the trends will emerge soon enough. I’m just thankful we are up YTD on total sales of single family homes in Longmont. It’s been a while since we’ve seen that in positive territory.
February 2018 Longmont Sales Statistics (.pdf)
February 2018 Longmont Sales Statistics (.jpg)
There is one HUGE thing that I’d like to briefly cover. If you take a look at the chart I created, the price increases in the local towns in our region are pretty self-evident. This year Dacono took top honors of having the highest increase in average price at nearly 18%!!! You’ve all heard “drive until you qualify“. This is an excellent example. In fact, this chart is almost perfectly in reverse order of the average price data. If you think people don’t gravitate toward value, you are wrong. And, Boulder may have its second consecutive $1 million plus average price, but it actually declined! Maybe there really is a ceiling when you have affordable housing in nearby communities.
The real oddball in this chart is Berthoud. How can a tiny town like Berthoud have a declining average price amongst all these giant increases? Loveland to the north and Longmont to the south each increased 9%, so how can there be a 14% difference? The time to make your guesses has passed… It’s new construction. More specifically, it’s new construction of moderately priced homes. Berthoud had only 201 sales in 2016. Last year they had a 139.3% gain in homes sold to 481 units…and it lowered the average sales price. Hmmm, do you think that would work in other places? This supply of new homes may not lower prices in all cases, but it would surely help stabilize them because it would relieve the upward pressure of demand. This is basic economics folks, not rocket science.
My prediction from about two years ago is that this is the year that we will finally see some relief from skyrocketing prices. With interest rates finally on an upward march, what would have been higher prices is going to be offset by the increased cost of money. It’s my prediction we will probably only see a 5%-7% increase in prices in 2018. That increase is going to be held back by the fact that it’s going to cost buyers more to borrow. Don’t think this will be a slow-down, prices will just be rising less rapidly, and the rest is business as usual.
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
ksnyder@firstam.com
720-534-8355
Lack of Inventory Continues to Fuel Price Increases
Another month and another record setting average sales price. I’m guessing that at least once this year we’ll see the average Longmont single family home break the $450k price mark. It has to happen if we can post an average of nearly $448k in January. Additionally, I predict we’ll see the average attached home exceed $350k. While I’m on a roll, I’ll go ahead and throw this one out there too: the Carbon Valley will see its first $400k monthly average. I’d like to say these are bold predictions, but they aren’t. The two I made for Longmont are only a smidge away in the slowest month of the year and the median price in the Carbon Valley is at exactly $400k this month, so they will all come true, it’s just a matter of time. What would be very surprising is if none of them come true.
Speaking of predictions… I still keep up with my custom built sales predictor. For years, this marvel of mathematical engineering has been called The Predictor. Recently we named it Henrietta. And Henrietta was off by 5 sales for the entire year of 2017. One day someone will figure out how to make money with such accurate information. Let me know if you have an idea and you’ll be able to rename it.
Architectural Rendering of South Main Station. Construction trailer recently moved on to the property. Looking forward to this historic project.
One thing we don’t need Henrietta to predict is the lack of inventory at this time of year. If you look at the chart in the middle of the stats page, it clearly shows a dip in inventory at this time of year… every single year. We understand this is a result of the weather and holidays. If we take a peek into the current inventory numbers we’ll see there are only 60 active listings that aren’t under contract and 23 are still under construction. It’s pretty tough to find a home for a buyer to move into immediately with only 37 active listings on the market. Spring is coming and this situation will improve, but to what extent?
January 2018 Longmont Sales Statistics (.pdf)
January 2018 Longmont Sales Statistics (.jpg)
There are two things that give me a bit of hope when it comes to inventory this upcoming year. The first is depicted in the graph. The surge in inventory last year was higher than the previous year. This was despite higher prices, so it screams excess demand. Our current inventory situation is simply a winter thing that needn’t be over-explained. Let’s get a show of hands of who wants to move during the winter. Seeing none, we can agree that it’s simply more convenient and comfortable to move in the summer.
The other thing that gives me hope is the continued new construction of single family homes and apartment complexes. My research show there were about 250 new homes added to town last year. And of the 1,800 apartments on the books to be built, about half of them have been completed with many of the rest to be completed this year. The capacity and opportunity for turnover new construction brings to the market will result in a year similar to the past three. That’s if interest rates don’t run away from us. Fingers crossed.
Rant of the Month
When Realtors talk about their employment status they usually say they are an Independent Contractor. Technically this is true, but really, that job status is an IRS definition of how they are not an employee of their brokerage. This status gives them freedom from “reporting to work” and defines how they are taxed, but I’d argue that it’s time for a change in this thinking.
You won’t get the IRS to change your classification, but a change in mindset might be beneficial to your business and income. Try on this hat and see if it fits: Solo-prenuer. Yes, it’s a real word used to describe people who run their business single handedly and take full responsibility for the outcomes. Sound familiar? A Realtor isn’t an entrepreneur because they don’t have a marketing team and accounting team and a distribution or manufacturing system… you typically work alone. In the case of a team, it’s still typically being directed by a single person.
Solo-prenuer embodies the lone-wolf nature of a Realtor, the creative brilliance of your research, the personalized marketing and the individuality of your brand are the trademarks of your business. You put on your “me against the world” clothes every day, personalizing everything from head shots to listing presentations. You’ve already accepted the fact that nobody’s going to do it for you, your income is uneven, and both good and bad decisions rest squarely on your shoulders. So, own it! Be your own boss, reprimand yourself when you need it, reward yourself excessively if you deserve it. Your schedule is flexible and you don’t have to worry about HR reprimanding you for wearing tattered jeans. You can hire and fire clients at will and your decision-making doesn’t include several levels of management. You can pivot on a dime and you have a higher earning potential than an hourly worker. Embrace the insanity of your “job” and BE the boss you always wanted to work for.
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
ksnyder@firstam.com
720-534-8355
Year End Report Shows 10.2% Jump in Average Sales Price
Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2018 is your best year yet. Thank you for reading my monthly stats reports. I hope to continue to be informative throughout 2018. This is the final regular stats report covering 2017, but you will see some additional reporting in the coming weeks. First, I will be updating all 2017 reports by adding REColorado data to that of IRES, which is all we’ve seen for most of the year. Also, the annual Housing Affordability Report will be coming out near the end of this month. Both of those will take a little extra time due to the lack of data share.
If you recall, a year ago I promised to eat my sock if our average price increase was under 8% (here is a link to the proof: http://bit.ly/2wcGjcd). I got called out by a number of people who thought I was crazy. The rising prices, low inventory, rising interest rates and lack of job growth were all reasons why I was supposed to get used to the taste of dirty socks. Cutting to the chase, I cleared it by 2.2%! Yes folks, another 10.2% climb in average sales price puts us at a 37.8% price increase since 2014 and that’s just for single family detached homes. The average sales price of a home in Longmont in 2017 was $421,836, up from $382,766. That is nearly a $40k increase. Yes, I know, it’s got good and bad written all over it, but consider this, the average price in Boulder only went up about $1,000 to $1.094M. I’d argue that Boulder is suffering more from rising prices, low inventory, etc., than we are.
If you are amazed at the average price growth of single family homes, then you will be floored by that of attached homes in Longmont. That average price only grew by 8.6% over the past year, but to put it in perspective, those prices have risen by a whopping 48.2% over the past four years. As in the paragraph above, I want to point to what happened in Boulder, the average price of an attached home over there FELL this year by about $28,000 to approximately $465k.
December 2017 Longmont Area Sales Statistics (.pdf)
My Favorite Work Photo of the Year – Jen Engelking and Lenise Jacobs
December 2017 Longmont Area Sales Statistics (.jpg)
2016 vs 2017 Year in Review Stats
I’m interested to see the results of the upcoming Housing Affordability Study. My experience tells me that Longmont will again, be proven to be the most affordable town with the most available affordable homes in Boulder County. The interesting part will be the results of the other towns in the county, which I predict will see a bit of a leveling off of prices like in Boulder. Why? Value. When you can buy a 1,000 sf shoebox in Old Town Longmont for $400k and you think it’s crazy; those things are going for $600k and $800k in Lafayette and Boulder. There is a point when people look at the price difference and think Longmont still has value, comparatively speaking. But I fear we are finally reaching our own price ceiling. The next great value movement will be in the Carbon Valley. All that new construction will really start attracting homebuyers who see the difference in price and think that an additional 10 minutes of commute time is nothing when they can save 2, 3 or $400,000.
2017 was an exciting year for many reasons. I have several personal milestones and achievements to reflect upon. Not only did I make a move to First American Title with Jennifer Engelking and Lenise Jacobs, I turned 50, played Pebble Beach for the first time and didn’t have to eat a sock. I hope you all reached your goals in both life and business. My wish is for your continued success. Whether you use First American Title or another company for your title and closings, we are all in this business together. If there is anything I can do to help you with your business, please feel free to give me a shout, maybe one day I can earn your business too. Thank you, from all of us at First American Title for the support and friendship you’ve shown to us. Our success is a reflection of your success.
Peace to All,
Kyle Snyder
720-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Sales Volume & Inventory Down, Prices Continue Upward
It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…except for the green grass, warm weather and no snow. Wait for it…winter is coming.
In January of this year, we started off at 19.3% fewer sales for the month/year, compared to 2016, and it looks like we will end up in roughly the same place when this year is over. That deficit in total sales eventually crept back to being only down by 7.3% in August, only to see the gap widen since then despite strong October sales. In fact, there have only been two months this year (May & October) where we have registered more single family closings in a month compared to the previous year. And we all know the total sales are about 5% fewer than they should be due to lack of data share. I was hoping to have that back on by now to go back and add those numbers in to get a real apples to apples comparison. Nonetheless, we still have an extremely strong market that will show about a 10% average price gain over 2016 when all the numbers are in.
Longmont Single Family and Attached
The biggest surprise in the numbers this month are the decreases in median and average sales price of attached homes in Longmont. We haven’t seen negative numbers in a long time. So what’s up? It’s very simple, there were no sales of those higher priced attached properties in the SW by Silver Creek HS, nor any from the 55+ community at near Hover and Mountain View. The SW project is nearing its end and you will see a bunch of those close soon, so these numbers will go back up despite the fact that the Hover project is closed out. Of the 30 closed attached sales last month, exactly 15 of them were the latest addition to the Summerhawk condos at 9th and CR1. And of the 69 total listings I show in the report, there are 46 (or 67%) of them under contract, leaving just 23 active attached listings in Longmont and 9 of those aren’t even built yet. Yes, just 14 active attached homes available in Longmont that you can move into in 30 days. This is about 3 weeks of inventory at this time of year.
Longmont’s single family inventory is almost just as tight, but the prices keep climbing on a year-over-year basis. The solid nature of the single family prices this month are extraordinary. In November, 12 homes sold for $300k or less, which is tied for the most in a month this year. Just that alone should bring the average price down just a bit, but couple it with only one home that sold for over $1 Million and an average of 99% list-to-sale price, you can see how the average and median are not being bolstered by a bunch of high sales either. Demand is still very strong in Longmont. Of the 226 active and U/C listings in my report, only 81 is not under contract and about 14 are to be built. Yes, 67 active single family homes in Longmont that you can move into in 30 days. This is about 30 days of inventory for this time of year.
First American Title crew representing at the BizWest Boulder Valley Real Estate Conference L to R: Kyle Snyder, Gavin Higashi, Dori VanLone, Brandon Smith
November 2017 Longmont Area Sales Statistics (.pdf)
November 2017 Longmont Area Sales Statistics (.jpg)
Boulder County Plains and Carbon Valley
The stats that come out of the Boulder County Plains are always a surprise to me. Their prices have more peaks and valleys than Colorado has 14ers. Their peaks are determined by how many $1M+ homes sell each month. In November there were 8, which is about average, and only one was over $2M. The interesting thing about this area is the floor. In November, the least expensive house sold was $360k. And it usually has the highest inventory. Right now, of the 231 active and U/C, 165 of them are not under contract, which is about 4 months of inventory.
And last but not least, the Carbon Valley. Of the 51 closed homes, four of them (or 7.8% of closings) were under $300k. Compare that to Longmont’s 12.6% of closings for the same price point. Also interesting: 13 of 51 closings (or 25.4%) in Carbon Valley were brand new homes and 72 of the 144 actives are not under contract – about six weeks of inventory.
Last week I attended the Boulder Valley Real Estate Conference that BizWest put on every year. As always, it was excellent. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist from NAR spoke and addressed real estate bubble concerns head on. On top of reiterating the fact that this market is built on wealth and not credit, he also pointed out we have 30% fewer sales and 53% fewer housing starts than we did before the crash in ’08. John Covert of Metrostudy backed up Yun’s comments with a great talk about vacant developable lots throughout the region. It’s impossible to summarize all he said, but townhome construction is making up a bigger percentage of new starts than ever before and because Boulder County is one of the more constrained areas for housing, things are not going to get any easier.
Rant of the Month
New feature. Hoping to help you with your business.
I have overheard several Realtors engage with potential buyers and sellers recently. Those potential clients still ask the worst question possible “How’s the market?” The problem I have is the response I keep hearing from Realtors. They respond with a head drop and an eye roll and say “Sloooow”.
Slow is a relative term and it means nothing to the consumer. If this is a seller, does this mean they shouldn’t list now because it’s slow? If they are a buyer, does that mean they have plenty of options out there because it’s slow? Is it slow compared to summertime or fall or what? Slow tells them exactly nothing besides the fact that the Realtor they are speaking to isn’t doing much business at the moment.
The fact is, I have plenty of clients who are NOT slow, and in fact they are very busy. The market is normal. It’s normal for this time of year. It’s normal for the current economic climate. It’s normal if you consider the interest rate environment. It’s even normal for the lack of inventory.
I challenge everyone who reads this to think twice before answering this question from potential clients. How about “How’s the market?” You answer: “There is a lot of opportunity out there, why do you ask?” There are opportunities to list and sell your home. There are opportunities to buy if you are qualified, have a down payment and are patient. There are new home opportunities. There are opportunities to buy the home of your dreams. Investment opportunities are a little thin right now, so patience is the key on this front.
Think of the positive aspects of the market we have. Nobody can do anything to change the current market, so embrace the challenge of securing a new client who may buy or sell with you. Prove to them you are the right person to help make their dreams come true. Now, go back and re-read the stats, get those numbers in your mind and head out to a bunch of holiday parties and take advantage of the opportunities you have to secure buyers and sellers for the upcoming year.
Cheers,
Kyle Snyder
720.534.8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Longmont Price Increases Outpacing Carbon Valley
5 months ago
Since there isn’t much to cheer about in regard to our beloved Broncos, let’s just focus on the real estate and all we have to be thankful for. One thing I’m thankful for and look forward to receiving is the yearly NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. It was just released and you will do yourself a huge favor to read (or at least flip through) it. NAR collects tons of data and they are getting much better at making it meaningful. I noticed several new and changing trends in my first quick look, but I’ll have to add this 144 page document to my holiday reading list.
In our local real estate market, I’m thankful for a strong market where prices are still trending up, days on market are settling in at around 60 days, and active listings are somewhat stable, albeit low. The attached October report clearly shows our markets are doing well. Last month I was looking at the data and seeing some discrepancies I promised to research. One was new home sales. Well, pulling data from the county records didn’t help. We have more new home sales reported in IRES than I could find in the county records. The more I looked, the more I realized that many of those homes sold are still categorized as vacant lots because their tax status hasn’t been updated. Nonetheless, we have nearly 90 new home sales reported through IRES. I’m sure that is lower than the actual total, so I’m thankful we have some representation in our numbers.
FirstAm Crew at Mile High Stadium
Each area in the stats report shows an increase in both median and average sales price. Home owners and sellers like seeing this trend. Buyers… not so much. The good news is that in Longmont single family home sales in October, there were actually 8 homes that closed for under $300k and the highest was only $807k, so the average isn’t being skewed by several $1M+ homes like we’ve seen in the past. The Longmont attached homes are just about the opposite. Three of them sold for over $500k with the most expensive at $659 and the least expensive being $195k.
October 2017 Longmont Area Stats (.pdf)
October 2017 Longmont Area Stats (.jpg)
I am always thankful for the graphs I’ve created for you in the past. I can update them or put a new twist on an old graph. I updated this months from a couple years ago. It shows the monthly average sales prices for Longmont versus the Carbon Valley. The graph starts in January of 2015, the only month on record where the average in the Carbon Valley was higher than Longmont. You can see the average prices climb for each area, but I also added a linear trend line that clearly shows the Longmont prices outpacing those in Firestone, Frederick and Dacono. Most reasonable people would attribute this to Longmont being in higher demand due to its proximity to Boulder. If you think otherwise, let me know.
It’s less than two months until the New Year. We all know that listings and sales start to drop off for the winter at this time. We also know that now is a great time to start reflecting on the results from the past year and plan for next. When you start your planning and want to kick your business into a higher gear, feel free to bring me into your research and planning. I’m a small business consultant with many avenues, ideas and tools for you to consider. First American Title is a company that partners with several marketing companies to bring you new ideas, reasonable prices and streamlined processes to your marketing efforts. Feel free to contact me any time to see if I can bring some fresh ideas into your business.
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
720.534.8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Average Price in Longmont dips Below $400k for 1st Time in 2017
Happy Monday and Happy Fall y’all! The stats are ready and I have a couple of other things for you that may be of interest. Grab another cup of coffee and get ready for a beautiful week ahead.
There is so much red (negative numbers) on this month’s report, it looks like it’s bleeding. Red colored numbers are good when they are next to the Days on Market results, but not so much on the rest of the report. The numbers are so drastic I am going to have to look into a couple more items for next month because something just doesn’t seem right. The things I’ll bring to you will be a look into the amount of new home sales and I’ll even take a peek at the sales only being reported in REColorado.
In the meantime, the biggest topic of discussion is how things are slowing down and what an odd year it’s been for home sales. The market is moving in fits and spurts, and completely unpredictable. Remarkably, this is the first month since January that the average sales price of a single family home in Longmont has dipped below $400k. And even more amazing is that it is exactly one year ago when the September 2016 average price first broke $400k to set an all-time high water mark. Overall, average and median prices are still strong and higher than last year in all areas of this report… they just aren’t rising as fast as we’ve seen in the past four years.
First American Title Ribbon Cutting
September 2017 Longmont Stats (.pdf)
September 2017 Longmont Stats (.jpg)
We are still three months until the end of the year, but I want to point out one thing about this months’ graph. The graph is only showing the number of closed sales each month over the past 10 years. The first thing that’s easy to notice is the height of each of the peaks. The height this year, compared to last, is not much different. The last two years, compared to the previous four, are obviously lower and we attribute this to both rising prices and lower inventory. But if you look at the width of this years’ data, it’s very narrow. If you could see the data behind the graph, you’d see that it’s actually the lowest Year-to-Date total since 2011.
Where is this market headed? Obviously I don’t have all the answers and there is no magic pill to understand it. However, there is one yearly event I never miss to help in my understanding of what our future holds. If you’ve not been to the Boulder Valley Real Estate Conference put on by BizWest, you are surely missing out on the very best event of the year. This can’t-miss event always has a very light showing of Longmont area Realtors and I just don’t know why. Yes, it’s in Boulder, but it covers every part of our market and every town in Boulder County. It isn’t a bunch of CE classes, it’s in-depth analysis of what drives our residential and commercial markets. Every professional should be there. Believe me on this one and get your tickets here: http://bit.ly/2wBx1aX.
The last item I have for you has to do with the possibility of Amazon coming to Colorado. I’ve thought about what would happen if they moved to the proposed Louisville location. That move would turn this region on its head. Here is a good news story that will make you think about the depth and breadth of the possibility: http://bit.ly/2yucjOT. The Denver Post had a great article on this topic that you can read here: http://dpo.st/2hReCEr. We are now possible victims of our own success.
Enjoy the snow,
Kyle Snyder
720-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Year-to-Date Average Sales Price in Longmont – $425,758
7 months ago
by Title Guy
in Real Estate
Happy September to all. It’s football season again and that means we get to see our beloved Broncos back in action. Just like kids going back to school, it seems to come earlier every year.
Last month we reviewed the noticeable slowdown of sales. Remember, this is a slowdown in sales volume only, at this point. With low inventory plaguing us for the past three years or so, overall sales have resembled a sluggish economy instead of an expanding one. Granted, employment rates are at their highest point in several years and incomes have not risen in tandem. Maybe that will come next because a normal reaction to high employment (or low unemployment) is that employers need to pay more to retain good employees. This happens mainly because it’s cheaper to retain a good employee than lose their productivity and go through all the hassle to find and train their replacement. Fingers crossed on this happening.
This is a sneak peek of the 3rd hole at the new TPC Heron Lakes in Berthoud.
The graph I recreated this month is a follow up to last year’s graph from September, except this time, I included the data from both years. The results are very interesting and I think they graphically show what we all have been thinking about home prices in the area. If you look at the graph and focus on the 2016 numbers, it almost appears they have all shifted up one price range for 2017. In essence, this means that in 2017, sales have increased in every price range by about $50,000. This data is for the full year 2017 from January through August.
Since I had the data right in front of me, I updated the Year-to-Date (YTD) average sales price for single family homes in Longmont for 2017. As of the end of August, the YTD average sales price in Longmont is $425,758. As you may recall, back in January of this year, I made a prediction about the market and what it’ll do (look at the last paragraph from my post: http://bit.ly/2wcGjcd ). I said I’d eat my sock if we had only a 5% increase in prices over the course of this year. At this point we are sitting at an 11.23% increase. I guess all of you who told me to invest in some sock butter better think of your penalty for doubting.
August 2017 Longmont Stats (.pdf)
August 2017 Longmont Stats (.jpg)
As far as our local markets go, the biggest story is the continued rise in Longmont attached dwellings. A year ago we saw higher inventory and days on market due to all the new construction of townhomes being priced so high and sitting on the MLS for a long time during construction. Well, listings are way down and so are days on market. Prices are still climbing and so is the overall sales activity. As stated before, these homes now represent the affordable end of the market. This fact is proven by the higher sales totals every month and YTD. The shocking part of this is that the average price is still hanging around $340k!
I hope you enjoyed the summer. Mine was an interesting one that simply didn’t have enough golf involved. I’m OK with that because the move to First American Title has been nothing short of amazing. Jennifer, Lenise and I would like to thank those who have chosen to use First American for their title and closings. The support has been heartwarming and we are all settled in to our new office. Stop by some time for a quick tour and maybe we can grab a cup of coffee a couple doors away at Ziggy’s. You can find us at:
First American Title
512 4th Ave, Suite 102
Longmont, CO 80501
Regards,
Kyle Snyder
720-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Sales Volume, Not Prices, Trending Downward
Every month, in the days leading up to the time to put stats together, I ponder what kind of new chart to create to compliment or display the data the best. Sometimes, when hurried, I’ll just update the chart from the previous year. Other times, I’ll have something in mind, but the chart from last year is actually a better idea than the one I had. What you’ll see in the stats report this month is an updated chart from last year that shows almost the opposite of what was going on a year ago. This makes my job so much easier and more interesting.
Last year, when I first published this chart, it was titled “Show me the Slowdown”. It was specifically built to show how there was no discernible slowdown in sales… even though many people felt that way. Last year, the chart clearly showed our monthly single family sales totals were at or above the 5 year average for the first seven months of the year. It’s a different story in 2017. In six out of the first seven months of this year, our monthly sales totals are below that of 2016 AND all seven months are below the trailing 5 year average.
Bing Crosby’s old house on the 14th hole at Pebble Beach. Annual Taxes $72,762.44!!!
There are a couple of obvious reasons for the sales totals to be trending downward. The first probably has less impact than the second reason I’ll propose. The first is declining inventory levels. We are still trending downward in inventory, so the market is still getting tighter. New construction now makes up about the same percentage of the active market as it did last year, so that piece isn’t as much as an impact factor as it was in 2016 since new construction was just coming online about a year ago. Pricing is most likely the biggest factor in the slowdown of sales we are seeing. Median and average sales prices are still outpacing 2016 even though the average sales price for the month is less than it has been for the past several. When wages aren’t increasing it makes it tougher and tougher for people to buy more expensive housing, so they are just not participating as much.
July 2017 Longmont Stats (.pdf)
July 2017 Longmont Stats (.jpg)
Inside some of the numbers you see in the price grids you can find some interesting information. For starters, and I don’t usually lead with info from Area 5 or the Boulder County Plains, but look at that average sales price. It’s just a fuzz under a million dollars. This average of $928,733 is bolstered by 17 homes that sold for over $1M. Additionally, there was a 13,000 sf home on 20+ acres, just west of Hygiene, that sold for $5.9M!
Surprisingly, of the 108 total sales of single family homes in Longmont, 83 of them closed for $300k or less. That is one of the highest totals of lower priced homes selling in a month for quite a while. This activity in the lower (who’d ever thought we’d refer to under $300k as the lower end of the market?) end of the market is the primary impact factor in dropping our monthly average sales price down about $20k from its recent high in May of this year. Even with the impact of lower price homes selling, the monthly average in July approximates the YTD average home price.
We’ve spoken before about the ever increasing sales and sales price of attached homes in Longmont. The continued impact of new construction in this product is the primary driver in the significantly higher sales price. There were 6 new condos sold over at Hover Place that closed between $381k and $441k and a single, what appears to be a half-duplex that closed for $520k in Prospect. Those seven sales represent half of all sales that exceeded the average price for the month.
As promised last month, I updated the YTD sales totals in each area to reflect the monthly clean up that IRES does at the end of each month. And, we are still kind of not looking too closely at the Carbon Valley market since it doesn’t include a significant number of closing due to the lack of data share with REColorado, but in general, pricing is holding steady.
Thank you all very much for reading. I hope you continue to find value in this stats report. And lastly, I am being asked a lot about my new job at First American Title. Our office is open and running smoothly. Orders are coming in, closing are happening and we are all enjoying ourselves very much. First American is an excellent company and they have simply impressed Jennifer, Lenise and me every step of the way. Please let me know if you would like to meet so I can share even more.
Thank you very much for your support.
Kyle Snyder
First American Title Insurance Company
Account Executive
720-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
125 Year Old First American Title Opening Office in Longmont
9 months ago
I am thrilled to announce I have joined First American Title and will be opening an office in Longmont. This change is made even better with Jennifer Engelking and Lenise Jacobs on the team, as Closer and Assistant. We are all very excited for this opportunity to provide you with superior customer service. I’ve done my best to contact agents and lenders we’ve worked with for so many years, but wanted to use this stats piece as the official announcement of our move. For those of you who I’ve not spoken with yet, my apologies, we will surely catch up soon. My new contact information is below, so please feel free to call or email me at any time.
First American Title is a national title company with a stellar reputation. They have been underwriting in the state for many years and have had direct closing offices open in Colorado for the last 8 years. First American has been in business since 1889 and is based in Santa Ana, CA. They are a Fortune 100 company with outstanding people, support and systems. The management team is amazing and decision making is done on a local level, so we will be able to handle your questions on title work easily and quickly.
The new First American office in Longmont will be open on Monday, July 17th. You can find us at 512 4th Avenue, Suite 102, a half block east of Ziggy’s. Just look for the eagle on the door. If you need to place an order before then, you can email it to Jennifer Corsentino atjcorsentino@firstam.com. If you need me to come pick up earnest money, just shoot me an email at ksnyder@firstam.com or a text at 720-534-8355. I will get more details out next week once the office is finalized.
There are many great things I want to tell you about First American Title and our decision to join them, but that will have to wait until a later date. This email is about stats! Yes, these are the official stats of the Longmont Association of REALTORS®. These are correct and approved for use, so sit back and enjoy.
June 2017 Longmont Stats (.pdf)
June 2017 Longmont Stats (.jpg)
The end of June marks the end of the first half of the year, so I created charts to compare first half sales this year to those in the recent past. I did the math from the data in the chart on the left and can you believe the average price of a single family home in Longmont has risen 60%(!) since 2012? That is simply amazing. The chart on the right clearly shows the fewer sales total for the first half and we all know this is due to both lack of inventory and rising prices. You may notice the total sold in the chart on the right does not match the total in # Sold YTD. The total in the graph of 529 was pulled specifically for this report and is correct. The 510 number in the grid is comes from adding each monthly total together, but IRES does a great job of cleaning up the sales at the end of each month so the monthly number can go up or down depending on what they find. Also, some agents don’t get their listings updated by the time we publish. I usually update these in July and again in December to account for the slight monthly changes.
The monthly resale closed in the Longmont attached category is very low, but the yearly sold total is still ahead of last year. I’m pretty sure this is due to the increase in average price. If you think about it, this makes sense. Today the average price of an attached home in Longmont is about $50,000 higher than the average price of a single family home in 2012. There are fewer lower priced options for the attached buyer and those who’d love to sell are possibly being priced out of the single family homes… if they can find one.
The Boulder County Plains and the Carbon Valley numbers are still suffering from being underreported. There are many sales in both of these areas that occur in the other MLS only, but we are informed this lack of data will be fixed by the end of the year so we will go back and recalculate when we get the data back. But even without the complete data, which I estimate to be at least 20% of each market, it looks as if both areas would look strong. Overall, we are going to have to use these numbers more as a guide for the next few months.
Thank you very much for your support.
Kyle Snyder
First American Title Insurance Company
Account Executive
720-534-8355
ksnyder@firstam.com
Average Price in Longmont UP 10.6% in 2017
My apologies for being a little behind schedule with these, it’s been a busy week. Here are the May stats for your enjoyment.
When I looked at the May graph from 2016 and saw the number of sales in May of 2017, I thought this would be a great time to show you what I’ve been saying about average price and how it depicts where the activity exists.
If you take a look at this month’s graph you can clearly see the high number of sales in the $250-$300k range and the corresponding lack of sales in that range for 2017. To show the change in activity and price points, compare the closings under $350k for both years: there were 57 in 2016 and just 31 in 2017 – a 45% decline. Then do the same comparison for closings between $350k and $600k: 51 in 2016 and 77 this year – a 51% increase. The sales activity has moved up and the average has moved up with it.
Speaking of averages moving up, I have to point this out because it’s now starting to blow my robust prediction for the year out of the water. The monthly average price of a single family home in Longmont hit its 5th straight record high. The results from May brought the overall average price for the Year to Date to: $427,197 – a 10.6% increase over all of last year. And we haven’t even hit the hot time of the yearly market.
Beautiful Beaufort, SC by JJ Swartz
May 2017 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
Looking at Longmont Attached homes, you ca see the effect of the recent new construction being completed in SW Longmont. The average days on market has dropped dramatically and the number of closings YTD his significantly higher Even the median and average prices are normalizing. And when I say normalizing, I mean that the average isn’t bloated with very high sales prices of those new homes. I’m clarifying because you may have thought normalizing is like back in May of 2008 when the average attached price in Longmont was $171,380, it’s not. Those days are over.
I can’t wait until the MLS merger is all figured out. I’m sure all you Realtors out there feel the same way. But the stats for the Boulder County Plains and the Carbon Valley are just misrepresented. It’s comparing apples to oranges. And I don’t like it. At the end of June we will be half way through the year so I will do a special piece where I will pull IRES only data for this year and last for all areas so we can see what that looks like.
Thank so much for reading. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Cheers!
Kyle
Where is this Market Headed? Up for Now.
There are a number of things happening in the real estate business right now that I’d like to bring up here. I’m not positive how they will all come together to makes things better, worse or more of the same. I’m fairly good a reading the proverbial tea leaves, but I think these things will have to marinate a bit before we know their real impact.
First, a quote. This is from Steve Murray, Publisher of Real Trends, a local, industry-leading publication and a 40-year industry veteran. This is from the lead story in their May 2017 issue. The article is titled “Will We Run Out of Housing?” And the quote is: ”The problem is not just affordable housing; it’s that unless home building of all kinds increases back to near its historical norm of above 1.4 million homes a year, we may simply run out of places to live and homes to sell.” He gives several great numbers to back up this claim and it is very compelling.
The biggest recent news item is the passing of a reformed construction defects law here in Colorado. It was a solution liked by both builders and the attorney’s for HOA’s, so it surely can’t be perfect. It would have been nice to see our governor and others who were voted into office to take the lead on this, but nonetheless, we have something that may spur condo construction. It’ll take at least two years (and probably longer) before any of these condos are completed and ready for sale, so don’t look for any immediate relief. Just know it’s on the way to hopefully coincide with the increased housing needs of a growing population.
Between now and when those condos get built, there will be a lot more of the same: low inventory and increasing prices. This month’s chart was trying to depict the current inventory situation versus the past. Everyone knows inventory is low and the chart shows it’s nearly the same as the past 3 years, as evidenced by those four lines being almost on top of each other. Well folks, that’s why we go through this every month. There are 263 unsold listings in the MLS, but 57 of them are under construction. They are new construction homes and there is no way there were that many in there last year. I don’t have that number because we can’t go back in time to see the actives at that time, but I’d bet there were only a handful. If we eliminated all the new construction, we’d be at an all-time low for April.
My son Pete and his girlfriend Claire headed to prom.
April 2017 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
New construction is happening in the attached home inventory as well. Of the 90 unsold listings of attached homes in Longmont, one-third or 37 of them are under construction. We need this new construction in both single family and attached to serve both people moving into the area and for people looking to move across town. There are 1,800 apartments being built in Longmont right now. How these new rentals will affect the prices in its closest cousin – the attached home – isn’t certain, but my guess is that for the time being, attached homes will stay in high demand because they represent the most affordable housing segment in Boulder County.
Now, check out the average sales price of $956,088 for the Boulder County Plains area. I remember back when the City of Boulder averaged just under a million dollars. Nobody thought it would keep going up…little did we know. This one’s different. Last month there were 11 homes that sold in this area for over $1M and one sold for over $5M. That isn’t a typical month for this area. And, I’m starting to hear that the $1M+ price range is starting to slow down a bit. Let me know if I’m wrong on this.
The numbers for the Carbon Valley are the ones most affected by our recent loss of data share. Interesting tidbit, this area has 38%, or 63 of its 169 actives, under construction and those are just the ones listed in the MLS. These builders are pretty smart and they all learned a serious lesson back in ‘08/’09 when they got caught holding a lot of land and inventory homes that they couldn’t sell. Things aren’t slowing any time soon. Another example are the 1,800 homes platted in Berthoud (particularly around the new golf course) with about 2,300 more in the works. Activity will continue out there and now you are going to see a lot more construction along I-25 between here and Denver…
Last thing to mention: Longmont set another all-time high average sales price in April at $422,475. As far as streaks go, this one is pretty solid because it’s our fourth straight month with a higher high and a new record.
Hit ’em straight
Kyle
Average monthly home prices reach all-time high in Longmont
It’s official. We are now comparing apples to oranges. Everyone is always clamoring for apples to apples, but today, everything has changed. In all past stats reports we have used identical data sources, pulled in exactly the same manner at the same time every month to bring you this statistical data. And now, because of the death of data sharing between IRES and REColorado, this is not possible. With the disappearance of about 8-12% of our monthly data, I had to make some choices to work around this problem.
The first possibility is to pull in REColorado data and de-dupe it to add that data to IRES to get what should like our data from before the split. The problem here-REColorado doesn’t define an area in the same way IRES does, so it would take way too much time and still not be accurate.
The next possibility is to go back and just pull IRES data from a year ago and compare it to just IRES data this month. This is a better option than above, but I don’t like changing data I have previously published. Something about that feels wrong and I think it would create a lot of confusion about which one was changed and which one isn’t. It’d be like working with two different sets of data.
The third option, and the one I chose, was to keep the data from the past that comes from both IRES and RECO.com, and just include the IRES data I have at my disposal. This actually creates some unique perspectives, gives me a couple more things to talk about and hopefully it’ll be a temporary problem that can be updated (to change previously published data) or amended. I think it’s also the path of least resistance.
The first thing I did after I picked the third option above, was to scratch in what the sheet would have looked like had we chosen the 2nd option above. Believe it or not, there wouldn’t be that many big changes. In the Longmont Single Family, the top two lines would have a 10-ish% difference instead of a 20-ish% difference. Longmont attached would be the same except the median and averages would have gone through the roof. BoCo Plains would be nearly identical in all data points. And lastly, the FFD section would be similar to Longmont SFR with the percentages on # Sold for Month and YTD cut in half.
March 2017 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
From my experience in looking at this data every month, the area in which a loss of data share should impact the most is expected to be the Firestone, Frederick and Dacono region. This area typically has closer to a 30% penetration of metro area agents, who, in the past, have listed these homes in REColorado only. I guess we will see real soon if they make the move to list in IRES. My bet is that they do. I just don’t think that area has enough strength to be a stand-alone area for metro agents.
Other than that, how are things going so far in the first quarter? So far, so good I’d say. This despite the continued lack of listings. March 15th had traditionally been the start of the spring listing season, but that date has been pushed back about a month over the past three years. The reason being, you don’t need 60 days of marketing time and 30 days more to close a deal by June 15th… when the kids get out of school. You only need a couple weeks marketing time and the 30 or so days to close, making April 15-30 the perfect time to list to close by June 15. And, so soon as I got done explaining this theory to a couple hundred Realtors, the listings started pouring in on about March 23rd. I can’t say that being wrong is a problem in this case, in fact, it’s way better than being right because of the listings that come with it. Best guess it was probably due to the summer-like weather we’ve had this past winter.
And, just for the record, the $418,465 average sales price this month is the all-time high monthly average. Yes, as in highest EVER in Longmont. Not a great big deal because it’s March and there are still fewer than 100 homes sold in a month, but chew on this number: $412,467. That’s the average sales price in Longmont for the entire 1st quarter… Another all-time high.
Go list some houses, if you can, you won’t regret it.
By the way. I stole the headline for this post from Shay Castle at the Times Call. She has been doing a fantastic job of covering the Longmont housing market for nearly two years now. And because of her work, the Daily Camera and Denver Post have been covering the Longmont market as well. Thanks Shay. Here is her complete article: Average monthly home prices reach all-time high in Longmont.
Kyle
Breaking News – Newest Longmont Affordability Study Released
Amy Aschenbrenner of the Longmont Association of Realtors and Kyle Snyder are proud to deliver to you, our 2016 Longmont Housing Affordability Study. Please take the time to read the introductory letter in addition to reviewing all of the data. If you have any questions please feel free to contact Amy or myself. Click on the link below to see the report:
2016 Longmont Housing Affordability Study
Additional commentary by Shay Castle of the Daily Camera and Times Call can be found here: No Entry Level Housing Options
Sincerely,
Kyle Snyder
&
Amy Aschenbrenner
Winter Real Estate Sales as HOT as the Weather
Among Realtors and other industry participants, the big talk these days is about data sharing, or the lack thereof. In the short-term, this will be inconvenient at best. In the long-term, well, I’m on the side that hopes that some form of data share returns very soon. The best solution will include two years sales history, not just six months as it was most recently. I am lobbying for this solution for all my appraiser friends. Not all appraisals can be done with just six months of data, so even the most recent iteration of data share necessitated dual MLS membership.
Thinking ahead to March 2nd, I was Johnnie-on-the-Spot this month to grab REColorado sales data before it was gone. I don’t typically pull the stats until after the 3rd of the month due to the 3-day update rule at IRES. Even though I captured the data, I had to massage it a bit because I didn’t think far enough ahead. The results: the median sales price is actually a weighted average of two medians. When looking at the data that went in and came out, I like the results even if they aren’t perfect. This is just one of many ways a lack of data share can affect us even if a median sales price is of way less concern than a Realtor properly exposing a listing to the market. We have all gotten used to the data share and can hardly anticipate all the ways it will affect us. So, when given the chance, let your voice be heard and demand this issue be resolved.
February 2017 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
The chart we created this month is the same as last February and it corresponds to the results of the 2017 Housing Affordability Study that’s about to be published by Amy Aschenbrenner and myself. For the second year in a row, Longmont is one of the top performing cities in the study. You will notice the average increase (13.5%) for Longmont is 1% higher than what I published last month in my ’15 vs ’16 report for Longmont (12.5%). This is another effect of the data share. About a year ago, REColorado realized they were providing IRES with two years of data instead of the 6 months that had been agreed upon, so I don’t have full year REColorado data for either report.
I could go on and on about how bad the lack of data share is, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll let you check out the second consecutive month where the average single-family home price in Longmont is over $400k; the 3rd consecutive month where the median sales price of an attached home in Longmont is over $270k; the 3rd time in a row the average price in the BoCo Plains is over $700k and the 3rd time in a row where the average price of a single-family home out in the Carbon Valley is over $340k. Think about this for just a second, the months I’m referencing here are December, January and February. Those are typically our slowest and least competitive months where prices and averages usually take a hit. If this keeps up I will have to revise my estimate of 8% upward price growth for the year.
I hope your year is off to a great start.
Kyle
Longmont Posts Highest Average Sales Price Ever
I just love doing these stats. I like putting them together, dreaming up a chart that I hope you like and is relevant, and then writing this story every month. This is the first month of my 11th (?!?) year of doing this. That means this is the 121st story and email I’ve done since I began all this back in January of 2007. Thank you all so much for reading and giving me your feedback.
So, before we go too much further, let’s review the rules regarding the use of this material. There are none. It’s un-copyrighted material I publish with the permission of IRES, REColorado and LAR. You can use it and the words I type here, in whole or in part, to help inform your clients and show them you are a true professional with a firm grasp on the market. There is no copyright or source crediting police, but I’m told that the real estate commission may frown upon someone who would pass this off as their own and not quote a source. Personally, I don’t care if you do, because this is about you, not me. Legally, you might want to consider it. I’ve been told they can and will audit your marketing material. Any questions on use, just shoot me an email at ksnyder@ltgc.com.
January 2017 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
On to the stats. The chart this month shows we are up about 100% over the lowest month of November 2008. Who thought we’d ever double our prices from that time of panic in the streets? Not me. Nonetheless, here we sit at our second average price of over $400,000 in the past four months and looking to make that a regular occurrence throughout the year. Granted the sales volume in January is quite low, but that is only in the Longmont single family section. The other areas had normal to strong January numbers compared to last year.
In fact, the average and median sales prices across the board were strong. The strongest examples being the median price for Longmont single family (+26.6%) and Boulder County Plains (+30.7%), which pale in comparison to the average increase of Longmont attached (+36.6%) dwellings.
We all know that inventory, or the lack thereof, is the culprit here. The feedback I received from my last stats piece about the potential inventory boost from new construction and what it will do to prices this year is without detractors (up to this point). This means I’ve either pulled the wool over your eyes or we have similar optimistic outlooks. It’s going to be hard to derail this train. What will be the most difficult part to adjust will be to dial back our current, outright ecstatic outlook to merely optimistic. You must shift your approach and hope your buyers and sellers follow your advice.
Last thing. It looks like we will be dealing with a loss of data share beginning with next month’s stats. I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with it. Fingers crossed for miracles.
Here is to another great year!
Kyle
Longmont Prices and Full Year Stats
Oops, there it goes again. On top of a blistering 11.1% rise in prices back in 2015, Longmont experienced an even greater average sales price increase in 2016. The news of another excellent sales month in December is being overshadowed by the Year-over-Year (YoY) 2015 vs 2016 average sales price increase of single family homes in Longmont. Many experts predicted a similar and possibly smaller increase this past year, but numbers recently released show a 12.5% increase in 2016.
Home sellers have been quite ecstatic since they are able to sell their home and actually make money compared to the foreclosure, bankruptcy and short sale days of 2008-2011 that are still fresh in many memories. In the past two years alone, the average single family home price has risen 23.6% in Longmont. Home buyers are not quite as happy, but demand is still quite high due to the lack of inventory and the even higher prices found in all neighboring towns except for those to the east of Longmont in the Carbon Valley of Firestone, Frederick and Dacono.
The second annual report of YoY price increases is attached to this report shows, in addition to the normal monthly statistics, there are several stories of price increases. One notable item that needs additional explanation is the 19.6% price increase in the average sales price of attached homes in Longmont. This increase is in addition to 14.1% in 2015. All 2016 results here are significantly impacted by several new attached property homes in Southwest Longmont where the base price is well over $350k and most have been on the market for an extended period of time. This is in contrast to the single family home numbers that are not significantly impacted by any new construction in the area in 2016. The single family numbers will change in 2017 with several new housing projects opening soon.
Skiing Crested Butte over the holidays with my daughter Mikayla.
December 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
In a surprising twist to the end of year results is the decrease in the number of homes sold. When the basic economic principal of supply and demand is applied to the results, you see evidence that demand is still very high. Fewer houses sold, in fewer days on market, for a higher average price. The coming new home inventory in 2017 will, hopefully, slow this near parabolic, upward price curve. A well-known axiom of home price increases and historical averages indicate a healthy real estate market shows an approximate 6% price increases per year. Longmont has doubled that for two straight years, which could be considered unhealthy outside of a recovery period. Longmont’s recovery period ended about 2 years ago when prices exceeded their pre-meltdown levels.
The future looks even brighter, which makes the present look even better. There are several very big companies coming to Longmont and Boulder County. Google is the first one that comes to mind. They will bring in lots of people and pay them handsomely. Those people will need somewhere to live and Boulder’s $1M average price might be just a little too high. If they come here from California, they will be overjoyed to have less than an hour commute to work, so living in Longmont or east of here might look pretty enticing, especially if they can get a big yard too. The net effect of this will be that demand will remain brisk, prices will raise again, our economy will become more stable, and now is still a great time to buy a house.
MORE!!!
2015 vs 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
MORE!!!
2015 vs 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
After years of 11.1% and 12.5% price increases, what are the chances we will see something as low as a 5% increase in 2017? It seems like a lot more than interest rates rising to over 4% will have to happen for prices to slice their upward march by nearly 60%. But let’s just say, something more normal happens this year, and a 5% increase is what we report here next January. Well, if that’s what happens, the average price of a single family home in Longmont in 2017 will be $401,904. How much will your client wish they bought a house now, or this year? The big banks are going to have a hard time screwing up this economy and no matter how you voted, the guy in charge should be good for business, so hang on because if we get anywhere under an 8% increase this year, I’ll eat my sock.
Here is to your best year yet!
Kyle
Strong November Sales a Nice Surprise
Happy winter…finally. I thought we’d never get snow this year. Fingers crossed for a white Christmas. In the meantime, we have some stats to look at before you begin your winter hibernation.
A couple of years ago I switched up the graphs in this report to show different ways of looking inside the numbers. The old graph was just updated each month and looked like the one below. While I think it shows some good information, it can get a little stale seeing it month after month. For old times-sake I have to sneak it in every once in a while. I think it’s more interesting to see it with the peaks and dips from ’05-’11, but that’s just too messy. One thing here is obvious by looking at the purple lines that represent 2015, is that last year was a pretty darn big year for residential resale in Longmont. We won’t reach that total this year unless we have about 200 closing this December and there is a zero chance of that happening. We will end up with about 8% (or about 100) fewer sales and an overall price increase of about what we saw last year of around 11%. I guess those things are good, but what will we see next year?
It isn’t the New Year yet, but I’m ready to make a few predictions for 2017. I predict we will see an equal number of total sales in 2017 as in 2016. The end of this year will show our yearly overall sales price to be about $385,000 and I predict our sales price increase will be smaller – hopefully no more than 6%. If we do a 6% average price increase, the average home price for next year will be over $400,000! The tougher one to swallow will be my prediction of yearly average days on market will increase to the 60-70 day range…and that will make a lot of people nervous. It’ll be foreign territory for sellers and their agents, kind of like 4.5% interest rates will be too. The main driver behind my predictions are twofold, the rising interest rates, but the greatest influence will be the construction of new homes. In the end, all of these are good things, even the higher interest rates, because they will resemble something closer to the historical norm. Hyper price increases of 11% a year, 35 days on market and 3.5% interest rates make things looks rosy, but they don’t represent a healthy, balanced market.
Photo is of my daughter Mikayla at the entrance to the Louvre on our recent Thanksgiving trip to Paris.
November 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
As for November stats, they were a bit better than predicted. Every area had a higher sales total in November of 2016 than they did in November of 2015. That result probably had a lot to do with the mild weather we’ve experienced the last few months coupled with a newer phenomenon over the last few years that has been fueled by low inventory – a longer buying season. The summer spikes aren’t any higher for the same reason, meaning, if a buyer can’t find the house they are looking for in the summer months (due to low inventory), they have to buy in the fall and winter months. The next three months are the most unpredictable of the year, but this fact remains in-tact: those people who have a home listed are ready to sell.
I like to point out oddities in the stats report and we have one we don’t see very often. Look at the average and median sales prices in Area 5…one is up and one is down. This happened in February of this year with attached homes in Longmont and, ironically, in Area 5 last November.
If I don’t get a chance to see you in the next few weeks, I hope you and your loved ones have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Kyle Snyder
Longmont Real Estate Market Strengthens
Getting right to the point today. Happy Friday.
Longmont attached sales. Huge increase in monthly sales totals. Huge increase in average days on market. Huge increases in both median and average sales prices and a good leap in the number of active listings. Something isn’t quite right here… Check the data and you’ll quickly see the culprit of a few of those big increases. Of the 40 attached sales, 8 of them were from the new Hover Place condos. They had an average price of $391,237 and an average days on market of 233 days. This easily explains the skewing of price and DOM results. Hidden in this are the moderately priced new condos on Summer Hawk where there were 7 sales between $250k and $280k. This explains a lot. When is the last time we had 15 new condos sold in a month?
Longmont single family homes. Five of them actually sold for below $250k. Good news, right? Half (45) of them sold for between $300k and $400k. This is more good news because it shows there are still plenty of options in the somewhat affordable range. There were 2 that sold for over $1M – both were in Somerset Meadows. And the resulting average sales price was $386k, which somehow makes me feel better because it wasn’t over $400k again. And even though last month’s average was over $400k, I calculated the overall average for the year and it’s right around $385.
The owner of the Bedrock Store in Bedrock, CO is Anthony Pisano (center in white) from Brooklyn, NY. Stop in for an ice cream if you ever come across this place. He is a character.
October 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
Boulder County Plains. I long for the days when a stats piece looks like this…normal. It has nice increases in sales totals for the month and year, steady days on market and slight increases in price. Look at the median price increases in the other 3 areas of the report…they are all over 18% – that’s just too steep. It’s good for homeowners and such, not so much for buyers. The prices are just outpacing incomes, or at least that’s the general thinking on this. I had a thought, what if our prices were just lagging behind and they are just catching up to where they should be? I’m not equipped to answer that question, but it’s my official hypothesis.
Carbon Valley. While looking at the active listings and solds for the month I did a quick sort to see how many were being listed by REColorado (typically Denver Metro based) agents. For the active listings it’s 35% and for the closed sales it was 37%. A full one-third of all listings and sales are by Denver agents. I thought one of the biggest factors impacting this would be the the low-price agents, it’s not. While there are a few, it’s mostly because there are Denver agents representing builders. In Longmont we are holding steady at 12% of Denver agents. Back in the days of high foreclosures it was 12% as well. I had thought that would decrease when the market normalized, but it hasn’t changed.
Last item – the graph. I updated this from June of 2015. It has now been almost two full years since the average price in Longmont hasn’t dipped to meet up with the average price in the Carbon Valley. This would be hard to say exactly why, but I think I may have touched upon this earlier when I said that the rise in prices is really just a result of them having lagged behind for so long. The graph is pretty clear that about twice a year Longmont would dip and the Carbon Valley would jump so the lines would touch. Not having this for two years is an indicator of strength. Sure the inventory is still low, but it’s low everywhere. Price is only one component of perceived value and people must be seeing the value of paying more to live in Longmont. We can argue this point a lot of ways, but the prime example is Boulder, where the average price in October was $1,058,117!
I hope y’all have a great weekend. Go Broncos! Crush the Raiders.
Cheers,
Kyle
Average Price in Longmont Surpasses $400,000 for 1st Time Ever
Thank you all so much for the feedback on last month’s stats report. Included in today’s report are updated sales totals for each price bracket (bars), plus the average days on market (DOM) for the homes sold in that bracket (line). The graph reveals what we all know – that days on market increases as the price bracket increases. But now you can more accurately inform your sellers about their expected marketing times. With an overall DOM of 60 in Longmont right now for single family homes, you can clearly see the most active price points have the lowest average time on the market.
Please note that the reported DOM for September is 60. That number is the highest it’s been since February (69). A majority of the sales represented in the graph happened in the hottest part of our yearly market. The reason I point this out specifically is so you can communicate to your sellers to expect longer marketing times in the upcoming months and not the ones in the graph. We can reasonably assume the average days on market will increase in all brackets due to the slowing of activity between now and the end of the year.
September 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
Now for the good news/bad news portion of this commentary. Longmont single family homes eclipsed the $400,000 mark for a month for the first time ever! Good news for sellers, bad news for people wanting to buy lower priced homes. My how the times have changed. In the first 9 months of 2016, only 12 homes have sold for under $200k. In the same time period in 2009 there were 269 homes sold in Longmont for under $200k. The average price is going up everywhere, but look at the huge leap in the Boulder County Plains section. There were four homes that sold for over a million and one that was over $6 million, pulling that average way up.
On a side note. Many of you reading this are small business owners. And many of your clients are small business owners as well. There are many creative and fun people in that big group and 1stBank wants to hear from them. They have a video contest called 90 Seconds to Success that will award one person from Colorado $20,000 for the best business video. Go to www.efirstbank.comfor instructions on how to enter.
The last thing I’d like to say is that now is a very good time to change your email password. If you don’t have a two-step verification, you may have already been hacked and don’t even know it. Hackers are now sitting back and monitoring the inboxes of Realtors and waiting for emails to come in with sensitive information. They are getting things like names, phone numbers and closing dates from you and your clients. They are then masking their email address to look like yours or your clients so they can try to intercede in a transaction to redirect proceeds into their accounts. Every title company is on high alert for this scam. I know it’s a pain to change your password on all your devices, but in the end, it’ll be worth it.
Cheers,
Kyle
60% of Homes Sold in Longmont between $250-$400k
Back in May of this year I created the same graph as the one I have included in this month’s stats report. The difference is that the original had just one month’s worth of data. This one contains the year to date single family homes sold, so the data set is much larger to give us a clearer picture of where the action is. I added a couple of extra columns, but for the most part, the results are the same. In May, 63.5% of all sales were between $250,001 and $400,000. During the entire first two thirds of the year, 59.5% of all sales were in the same price range.
It would be interesting to track the days on market for each of these price ranges because that would give sellers a more realistic marketing time frame depending on their price point. We all know that the days on market for a home priced at $280,000 is much different than that at $530,000, so maybe we will visit that next month.
July 27 at the top of Molas Pass near Durango, just before we started our 230 mile, 7 day trek to Moab
August 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
For the time being, let’s go back to what we have in front of us. The most active portion of the pricing spectrum isn’t news. We’ve all pretty much known what sells, but it’s nice to see the numbers to back it up. What interests me are the outliers in the graph. For the lower end, there simply aren’t any. The one home that sold for under $150k was that boarded-up, uninhabitable place over on Coffman and 3 of the 8 between $150-$200k closed back in January. On the other end of the spectrum, there were two homes that sold for over $1M, both in Sommerset.
Average and median prices continue to climb on a year over year basis. The Longmont attached home inventory and days on market increases are still trending higher only because of the new attached inventory in the southwest part of town. Interestingly, both DOM and inventory are climbing in the BoCo Plains and Carbon Valley markets. We will have to keep an eye on those over the next couple of months. Only the Longmont single family market is holding steady in those departments. I have a feeling this will continue for another few months before the leftover demand from summer is fulfilled.
I don’t know if anyone eles is ready for football, but Thursday can’t get here soon enough for me
Cheers,
Kyle
Show me the Slowdown…
Surprisingly, the most common question or comment I am getting these days is in regard to the slowdown of the market. Of course I’m not a Realtor, so my perspective is a bit different than those of you working with buyers and sellers in the market. My daily, weekly and monthly view is mostly from orders and closings in our office and throughout our company. I take an occasional look at new listings. I can tell you that orders and closings are at or just above our all-time highs. Listings look healthy and robust, even if they are a bit pricey.
Of course, with no real evidence of a slowdown in my day-to-day interaction with the market, I went straight to the stats. The first thing I did was grab the last 5 years of single family sales for January through July in Longmont and graphed them out (see this month’s graph). Since January, sales totals in 2016 have been running slightly behind those of 2015. The overall sales total in 2016 is only 6.2% or 48 units behind 2015. That small number surly can’t be felt in the market, so my next step was to average out the past five years and add that trend line to the graph…still nothing because this year is running almost exactly at the average for the past five.
Photo from my ride at Wedding Bell Hut, overlooking the Dolores River with the Manti-Lasal Mountins in the distance. We rode to and then over those mountains into Moab.
July 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
To find evidence of a slowdown I looked even deeper. All the numbers in the Longmont Single Family homes looked pretty good, so the next step was to look at Longmont attached homes. Here, I found a little something. There is a spike in active listings. This is easily explained. Of the 107 active attached homes, 63 are brand new construction, with an average DOM of 104 days, and an average price of $364,940. That average price is higher than the average price of a single family home in Longmont. In the economics of real estate, I’d suggest this kind of activity shows a vibrant market where demand for this product and all the included amenities is pushing the market upward.
My search continued into the Boulder County Plains area. Here, no evidence of a slowdown with the possible exception of higher days on market. So that leaves us with the Carbon Valley to find a slowdown. Here…possibly. But as we know, one month does not make a trend. If you look in this box in the report, all four metrics of monthly sold, YTD sold, DOM and Active listings are going in the wrong direction. Going back to the reports for the past three months, shows similar numbers. If you remember from report at about this time last year, Firestone, Frederic and Dacono were skyrocketing. Now, not so much. I would agree that we may have found some evidence of a slower market. But really, is this being felt by agents in Longmont to the extent that they would come to me and ask if things were slowing down? Possibly.
If you think back to many of the discussion we’ve had here at what’s driving the market – demand, low inventory and rising prices – the flow of this starts in Boulder, works itself to Longmont and then out into the Carbon Valley and then north. Remember the “drive ‘till you qualify” saying being splashed around earlier this year? There is better than normal inventory at the moment and I hear that multiple offer situations are decreasing too. This is some evidence of less demand. If you pair that with all the new homes, townhomes and condos being built, which take at least one Realtor out of the deal, I can see where a slowing of the market is being felt.
On the plus side of some of these minor signs, prices are still increasing, inventory is becoming available, interest rates are still low, and transactions are still closing. I hear from a lot of lenders that appraisals are about 45 days out, which shows there is still a lot in the pipeline. Staying focused on your daily lead generation and taking great care of the clients you have is still the very best way to ensure you have business to carry you through the fall and winter months. And the best part: it’s almost football season!
Cheers,
Kyle
Average Price in Longmont Jumps to $397,144
I have a lot of little items for you this month, so this won’t be one of those smooth, flowing stories I usually write. I hope you enjoy and find value in this all the same.
First of all, take a look at the median and average price increases in all areas. They are UP in all cases between 8.1% and 21.9%. This is amazing to see this half way through the year in addition to the decline in sales volume in 3 out of 4 areas. Area 5 is leading the pack with increased sales for the month and year, higher DOM, fewer listings AND higher prices.
Now take a look at the average price for June in Longmont…$397,144! It’s on the verge of $400k! Who’da thunk it? If you think that mark is impressive, well, it’s almost exactly one third of Boulder’s average sales price last month of $1,192,530. Believe it or not folks, even with our higher prices, there is still value to be found in Longmont. I’m pretty sure this is the first time Boulder’s monthly average has been over $1 million. And if my calculations are correct, they are over $1 million on average for the entire first half of the year.
Both of the graphs I created for you this month show just first half numbers for the past five years. You can see the sales volume is down just a bit (7.4%). This has been the trend all year thanks to our slow winter months. There’s a small chance we can catch up, but I wouldn’t bet on it (because of inventory, of course). The interesting graph is on the right, which shows the overall average sales prices for the first half of the past 5 years. I inserted the trend line to show just how steady and consistent this increase has been. The percent increases are, in order, starting from ’12 to ’13 are: 8.7%, 8.1%, 9.3% and 11%. When you read articles about a healthy housing market, “they” say increases of 6%-8% are healthy and anything more than can lead to problems. Again, this is not an indicator of a bubble. Elliot Eisenberg said it and I’ll say it again – This market is built on wealth, not credit. There is no bubble.
Perfect Colorado day in Vail.
June 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
Thank you for the feedback and updates to my list of new home construction projects in the area. I’ll include the link to that page frequently over the next several months in case you lose it. When I get some time I will build a map so you can see where these projects are located. Here’s the link: Longmont Construction Map.
Well, that wasn’t as disjointed as it looked in my head before I started typing. Please let me know if you have any questions.
The year is half over and if you haven’t seen the results you expected from your efforts, think about this quote from James Allen: “In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of effort is the measure of the results.”
Cheers,
Kyle
Inventory Located & May 2016 Sales Stats
The story hasn’t changed here folks, but I think I have found some inventory for you and more relief may be on the way. But, before we get into where the inventory can be found, let’s take a quick look at some numbers in the chart.
Monthly and yearly sales totals are DOWN in all areas of this report. As we discussed several times, it isn’t all due to the rising prices, but the lack of inventory is having a huge impact on this market right now. The buyers are still there and there are more coming every day. Average and median prices for single family homes in Longmont and the Carbon Valley are still on their steep increase of 10-11% YoY. The Boulder County Plains, which carry a significantly higher price point, are still increasing, but at a slightly slower pace. This is to be expected.
Just like last month, the very high DOM, average, and median prices of attached homes in Longmont are due to the new construction townhomes in the southwest part of town that are selling above $350k. For comparisons sake, of the 32 attached sales in May, there were 23 resales which had an average price of $276,718, median price of $257,000 and 23 Days on Market.
I took this photo while playing Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen on 6/5/16. There were 7 elk on the course and they were very pleasant.
May 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
The graph this month is simple, but revealing. It shows a number of different price bands and where the sales are occurring. It looks like the sweet spot for selling max’s out at about $400k. I was going to bring in the DOM for each price breakdown, but thought of that after I’d done all the work. Maybe next month.
I claim to have found the inventory in the area. When I pulled stats for this month I checked the Active only listings and there were 90 on June 6. Of those 90, 23 (or 25.6%) of them are new construction. Some of them are ready now and some are yet to be finished. Not all builders put their homes in the MLS, so I did some digging and have come up with a list of new construction projects to take your sellers. Sellers are having a bit of a hard time finding a replacement home so here you go; get them into one of these and list their home for sale about 45 days before it closes. It’s a little less risky on their part because they know they are getting a new home, under warranty and they can get all those nice new things they want in their home. Plus, they don’t get “stuck” just taking what’s available on the market at the time.
The list I made is of all the new home communities and builders in the area I could come up with. I will only keep track of ones in Longmont, Berthoud, Mead, Niwot, and the Carbon Valley. The bottom section of my list is taken right from the City of Longmont’s Active Developments Log and represents mostly lots that are in the process of getting approvals to build on. The bottom line here is that there are about 450 single family or attached homes that will be coming up for sale here in Longmont in the next couple of years. Additionally, there are over 800 lots being planned right now. Maybe it’s time to have your sellers look at new construction.
I hope you have fun spreading this new knowledge of the Longmont market around this upcoming year.
Cheers,
Kyle
New Home Communities in Longmont
This post is a companion post to my May 2016 Longmont Sales Statistics Report. It will be updated as I get more information, so if you are following a link to this lost, come back soon because I’m sure there is a lot I have not included.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
These are builders and developments that are currently under construction or ready to break ground. Please send me any additions or corrections to this list at ksnyder@ltgc.com.
Sopris Homes
Based in Gunbarrel, this custom home builder is now building in all the following areas.
Woodridge in North Longmont. They have available 18, 1-acre lots
Sommerset Meadows in Southwest Longmont. One lot remains
Portico in Southwest Longmont. Two lots remain.
Contact:
Tracie Thede at 303-522-3911
Richfield Homes – Longmont based home builder with two properties under construction in Berthoud and Brighton.
PrairieStar (Berthoud – Hwy 287 – County Road 17)
265 Homesites (44 sold) + mulit-family homes and town center.
Contact:
Geralyn Gibson – Community Sales Manager – 720-587-7783
Shelbie Gehle – Assistant Community Sales Manager – 303-552-8942
www.liverichfield.com
Riverside (Brighton – 7 miles east on Hwy 7 from I-25 – North Side)
92, 1-acre Homesites 58 solds
Contact:
Stephanie Lerwick – Community Sales Manager – 303-817-8055
Ashly Tugmon – Assistant Community Sales Manager – 303-817-5070
Brookfield Development
This is the developer of Barefoot Lakes in Firestone, just east of I-25 and North of 119.
293 total homes in the first phase. Two builders so far: Brookfield Residential and CalAtlantic. Both plan to have homes available this fall.
Brookfield Residential
Kristen Peterson at 303-790-6663
CalAtlantic (used to be Standard Pacific)
Brian Cassidy at 303-486-5004
Gen3 Homes
Longmont based custom homebuilder with 10 plans to start from. Has one spec home in Starwood that will be ready in a few months with time to pick finishes. Also, two large lots in Erie with great views and zoned AG (no HOA)
Contact: Susan Massey at 720-371-1511.
Sigg Brothers Homes
Longmont custom home builder will build to your specifications.
Contact:
Doug Sigg at 303-579-3674
Innovative Homes
Longmont home builder, building moderately priced homes from $320k-$370k
Coal Ridge Estates in Frederick. Only 11 lots remain
Contact:
The Dunn Team at 303-772-9620
Horizon View Homes
Johnson Farm in Frederick
Lennar
Provenance off Hwy 66 between Pace and County Road 1. 226 Single family homes.
Contact:
303-569-8045
Coast to Coast Development
Parkside – in Quail Ridge. 93 condos and 36 single family homes
Contact:303-848-4185
www.coasttocoastdevelopment.com
LGI Homes
Sharpe Farms in Dacono off Hwy 52, just east of I-25
The Shores in Frederick
Siena Park in South Longmont
Contact: Kevin Wolf 855-396-2700
Terrata Homes
Yeager Farms – 45 Lots. $400k-540k
Contact: Chad Jarrell at 866-831-4955
Dream Finders Homes
Silver Meadows – Luxury Townhomes near Silver Creek HS
Park Meadows – Townhomes in Longmont. Project not started yet
Contact
Tami Smith or Gabriele Walton at 303-827-3086
Masterwork Home Company
Custom home builder building in Summerlin and Somerset. Homes from $950k-$1.2M. Located just west of Airport Rd and Glenneyre Dr. They have 11 lots remaining in Summerlin and 2 spec homes in Somerset.
Contact:
Brian Terry at 303-845-0949 or
Ronda Connolly at 303-746-5040
Meritage Homes
West Grange – 83 home sites from $450k-$600k
Contact: Go see David Trow or Rosalie Borja at:
1020 Redbud Circle, Longmont, CO 80503
LOTS IN PLANNING STAGES
And the rest of this is taken from the Active Developments Log of the Longmont Planning and Zoning Commission – May 2016. Most are all still in the early planning stage so there is no contact information or further details at this time. If you’d like to see the full list on the City’s Active Development Log with a map – CLICK HERE.
Boulder Creek Homes
Denio West – 81 lots to include single family, triplex and fourplex buildings.
Location: SW corner of Hover St and 9th Ave
Shadow Grass Park, Eastgate 6th Filing – 44 single family detached homes
Location: South of 17th, NE of Moonlight Dr.
Shadow Grass Park, Eastgate 3rd Filing – 50 Single family home lot PUD subdivision
Shadow Grass Park, Eastgate 4th Filing – 26 single family lots
Shadow Grass Park, Eastgate 5th Filing – 27 single family homes
Dream Finders Homes
Clover Basin Ranch – 62 Single Family Homes
Location: generally east of Mt. Audobon and south of Renaissance Filing 4
Meadow View Estates – 20 single family lots
Prairie Village 7th Filing – 36 Townhomes
Somerset Meadows Filing 5 – 199 Single Family Homes. I believe this is the property that KB Homes bought recently.
Boulder Creek Builders
Tramanto 2nd Filing – 20 lot residential subdivision
Harvest Junction Village – 277 Single family homes. I believe this is the Oakwood Homes development along Ken Pratt, just east of my office
Low Inventory Now Slowing Sales
I was going back through the last two years of stats reports to find something I had written. I never found what I was looking for, but I did find something else. I found that the most common theme in my reports is inventory. I’m guessing y’all are tired of hearing about it. The problem here is that I found that out after I created this month’s chart on guess what…inventory. I’ll work on that in the upcoming months…promise.
In the meantime, let’s take a look at inventory today. The graph in this months report shows we are at an all-time low. What is doesn’t show is that there are only 49 single family resale homes available in town. There are also 22 new-builds, some of which are actually complete. No matter how you slice or dice the numbers, a prediction I made (but couldn’t find) is finally coming true. Low inventory is slowing down sales. The flash inventory environment we’ve been experiencing for the past two years is catching up to us. The rapid increase in price has a lot to do with this as well.
Goodbye this.
Rather than spend any more time on the lack of inventory, let’s see what it’s doing to sales across the region: Longmont single family sales are down 8.7% year over year; Longmont attached-down 32.3% YoY; Carbon Valley-down 5.2%; and the Boulder County Plains is up 6 units or 3.3%. The fact that the sales totals are down hasn’t impacted price or days on the market, which is surprising. Median and average sales prices are up in every single region year-over-year and days on market is holding steady for the most part.
April 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
Hello Spring!
Having looked at these stats for so many years now, I never imagined market conditions, as described above, coming into play. Obviously, it’s still a sellers market, but I think we’ve reached a pricing plateau for the moment. If sellers aren’t careful with their pricing this summer, you will see days on market grow and prices soften. Prices softening in this context means there won’t be as much price appreciation year-over-year. If I could control the market, this is exactly what I’d like to see it do because the 11%-23% increase in average price is just too much for a market to sustain. Sellers don’t want to hear this, but they will need to pay attention to it because anything that’s sitting on the market for 45 days or more will be assumed to be over-priced and buyers will simply offer less. It’s the same old balancing act that professional Realtors deal with in every changing market and it’s a big reason sellers hire you in the first place.
I hope you have fun spreading this new knowledge of the Longmont market around this upcoming year.
Cheers,
Kyle
A Paltry 46 Resale Homes Available to Buy
It’s pretty obvious from the graph in the middle of the chart that the first quarter of 2016 saw fewer closed sales than last year. The easy way to explain this is lack of inventory. How about a little perspective on that inventory before we go any further? Look at the number of active listings in 2015 vs 2016, they are exactly the same at 262. Coincidentally, 2013 and 2014 were exactly the same at 264. So, our inventory isn’t any different at this time of year than it has been for the past 4 years. Why the big difference in closed sales? I can’t go back in time to research the active listings from 2014, when there were only 200 sales at this point in the year, but I can guarantee you that today is much different than 2014.
Of the 262 active and under contract homes in Longmont right now, there are just 79 that are just in active status. Of those 79 actives, a full 40% or 32 of them are new construction and most are not available for move-in for months. That means that there are really only 47 homes for sale in town…46 if you don’t count the one that’s condemned. Inventory is definitely the answer. Good news is on the horizon. The grass is turning green and this is the beginning of the end of winter hibernation. Since April 1, there have been 30 homes put up for sale and only 8 of them are under contract already. Hopefully this trend continues.
In the Longmont attached department, take a look at the significant jump in days on market. It goes from 46 to 121 and I’m wondering why. Thankfully, that’s an easy one to explain. It really isn’t that bad. The numbers are skewed by 5 properties in Silver Meadows and Hover Place that have been listed (and under construction) for anywhere from 231 to 345 days. If you take those out the average for the rest is 26 days on market. So the resales are selling fast. The sales price of those five condos is also contributing to the average price, which comes in higher than the average price of a single family home in the Carbon Valley. Again, if you take those five out of the mix our average detached home price drops to $279k. In both of these cases the data set is so small (14) that a few can really influence the outcome.
No spring photos so here is my son Pete and wife Michelle before a recent hockey game.
March 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
In the Boulder County Plains, their year to date sales total is down as well, but as we all know, there is very little new construction in this area, so why would their numbers be down? In this case I believe it’s price. The least expensive home sold in Area 5 was $330k and there were only 5 sold for less than $400k. The unaffordable prices in the City of Boulder (average of $922k in March, 2016) is a major contributing factor to the steep rise in this areas average price. The logic goes something like this: If you can’t afford to live in Boulder, head east and those prices will go up due to demand. When prices rise in BoCo Plains, they head further east to Longmont where prices rise due to demand. And when prices rise in Longmont, people head even further east to the Carbon Valley. Their prices are starting to rise nicely now too, so where to folks go next? Ft Lupton? Maybe. Johnstown? Yes. Just wait, it’s already happening there as well.
Some people are confusing our steep price increases with another bubble. This just isn’t the case right now. It could be in the future, but we are still a long way from that. There are an estimated 5,000 people a month moving to Colorado. Where do you think they are going to live? Lenders cannot lend like they used to with no-down, no doc, interest only and option ARM’s. Those are the unaffordable and unsustainable loans that made for a great movie called The Big Short. If you haven’t seen it, you should. The world doesn’t have that problem anymore. In a few years banks will figure out another way to screw things up, but for now there is no bubble in the works. In the meantime, believe in the demand, it’s real…that’s why builders are building. And when you are asked if all this new construction is going to hurt our prices, think of this, at what price will a builder sell his/her home? Market price and nothing less.
I hope you have fun spreading this new knowledge of the Longmont market around this upcoming year.
Cheers,
Kyle
Longmont and Boulder Lead Boulder County in Price Appreciation
Allrighty folks, it’s stats time again! I have some 80’s hair bands playing on my iPod so I’m ready to rock. Hold on tight because I have some other good data at the end of this report that should interest you.
First things first. At first glance, most people might think things are not going well with single family and attached dwelling sales so far this year Longmont. Monthly solds are down again in February and Year to Date (YTD) sales are down 15.5% and 25% respectively. Those are not the typical results we’ve become accustomed to seeing over the past couple of years. But, if you look a few lines lower you will see decreased days on market and increases in both median and average sales prices.
Inventory. Yes, I know you are all tired of hearing about it, but this is where the real problem exists. Of the 225 Active and Under Contract homes listed in this report, there are only 73 that are listed as Active. Of those active, there are 33 homes that are new construction and not even built yet. This gives us exactly 40 single family homes for sale in Longmont and one of them is condemned. This extremely low inventory is what is holding us back from bigger sales totals so far this year. Thankfully, I’ve seen a number of homes get listed in the last two weeks. Those homes are just extinguishing the leftover demand from last fall and over the winter. It isn’t enough to sustain us going into the summer. One note on the recent listings…at least half of the ones I’ve seen come on the market in the past two weeks were listed by out of town brokers…. hmmm.
February 2016 Longmont Area Stats
Click here for .pdf file
I hope you like my cool new bubble graph. It’s a total pain to make, but I like the way it shows the data. Those bubbles correspond to a town and it’s average price increase (or decrease) from 2014 to 2015. Longmont had the 2nd highest average price increase for single family homes in the 12 towns listed. That’s kind of amazing. What’s even more amazing is that two towns – Dacono and Frederick – actually had negative numbers. Please, I beg of you, don’t go out and tell everyone I said the price of homes is falling in these two towns. All it takes is a high number of doublewides sold in the Glens of Dacono for record high prices (in the Glens) to bring Dacono’s average down. Those people are taking advantage of rising prices, but those prices just happen to be at the low end of the spectrum. An average points more to where the activity is in a market, NOT an overall measurement of value for an area. What you could say is that there are probably more value priced homes available in these area and you could direct your buyers there instead of the high prices in Lafayette and Louisville.
Now, since you will all ask for it… here is the data behind the cool bubble graph. These are just single family detached homes in each town.
| City | 2014 | 2015 | %Change |
| Boulder | $864,639 | $963,556 | 11.44% |
| Longmont | $306,144 | $340,215 | 11.12% |
| Erie | $438,188 | $450,290 | 2.76% |
| Loveland | $313,631 | $321,442 | 2.49% |
| Firestone | $311,775 | $319,401 | 2.44% |
| Superior | $555,936 | $568,701 | 2.29% |
| Mead | $355,575 | $362,022 | 1.81% |
| Louisville | $553,016 | $561,338 | 1.50% |
| Lafayette | $476,691 | $482,393 | 1.19% |
| Berthoud | $385,934 | $386,681 | 0.19% |
| Frederick | $318,542 | $317,543 | -0.31% |
| Dacono | $269,462 | $260,034 | -3.49% |
One last interesting thing I found in my research for this project (The project is to update the Home Affordability Study I did for LAR and the City of Longmont last year.): of all 12 towns listed in this report, as of 3/3/16, there was just ONE attached unit active for under $150k. Guess were it was… Boulder. It was a permanently affordable shoebox listed at $113k. We need a construction defects ordinance in this town, and all surrounding towns, to get condo construction back on track in order to create lower priced options for these buyers that each of you have sitting on the sidelines right now.
Cheers,
Kyle
