Boulder is seeing it too…finally. Finally, that’s the word I’m focused on. It’s finally happening. It’s a double-edged sword, but in the long-run, we’ll be better off not living in a savagely unhealthy market. What it’ll look like in the future is still up in the air, but my favorite real estate analyst who coined the term “savagely unhealthy” to describe this market, agrees… finally. A handful of loyal readers of this newsletter have recently told me that my favorite analyst is their favorite analyst. Logan Mohtashimi is the lead data analyst at housingwire.com and if you don’t have a favorite analyst, listen to his pod and read his stuff. I think he is right on. Wait to you hear what he has to say about the Fed.
What can I say that y’all don’t know about what’s happening in the market? It’s slower. At this point Boulder has 26.5% fewer sales so far this year. Lafayette and Louisville are down about 17% and the only market with increased sales volume is Erie. Now that the 3rd quarter has ended, we can pretty much lock those numbers in for our targeted year-end results. It surely won’t get any better, but I don’t think it’ll get worse. We’ve settled into a new pattern of fewer monthly sales. Our active inventory isn’t growing because potential sellers aren’t listing. Those who do list are still getting decent returns that are higher than at this point last year. Even though the game has changed, there are still players, just fewer of them… on both sides.
Over the past two years, market activity throughout the northern front range looks very similar to the graph in this months’ report – higher average sales prices (blue bars) and lower days on market (red bars). Longmont had 21 consecutive months of higher average price and lower DOM, while Ft Collins had a string of 20 months straight. And now that the Fed is messing with things, we can expect to see our future look like the far-right end of the chart… flat prices with rising days on market. And if you think that little negative sign in front of the average price for the month in Boulder is of concern…please… year-to-date the average price of a single-family home in Boulder is up $169,992 over YTD 2021 for a 9.5% price increase all while experiencing a 35.8% decrease in sales. Explain that in a 6% borrowing environment.
Boulder Real Estate Stats September 2022
Oh, I forgot to mention the left side of the chart. That’s what normal kinda looks like. Everyone remembers that lockdown started in March of 2020, and the month before everything was selling for over asking, the average price in February 2020 was a $1.27M and days on market averaged 79 days. With our giant increase of 22.5% in days on market this month, we are only at 49. I don’t recall any complaints about the market back in February of 2020. All I can say about where we are headed is: Freddie Mac predicts an additional 10% decline in sales volume next year.
If you look at the Days on Market in Lafayette, Louisville and Superior you may get concerned, as you should be, this is our future, higher days on market. But rest assured, this isn’t the only story. Buyers are still buying quality and even in higher price points. Louisville saw a $2.4M home sell in 3 days; Lafayette saw two homes at $1.3M and higher go in under 4 days; and Superior experienced ALL of its closing in Rock Creek between 30 and 99 days.
Our guest spot this month is Niwot. It doesn’t have an actual designation in the MLS, so I drew a box around it that you can see HERE to define its boundaries for future comparison. I get requests for this data often, but there are so few sales in that town that it just looks skewed every month. What you see here are the number of solds for September 2022 on the top row of its box. All subsequent rows are year to date 2022 vs year to date 2021. As expected in a pricey little enclave like Niwot, sales are down more than the rest of the region. Unexpectedly though, days on market are even lower than last year while sporting a 25.4% average price increase. And get this, their YTD average price is $139k HIGHER than Boulder. Truly surprising.
It looks like it could be a beautiful fall. It’s also the start of the 4th quarter. The old adage in real estate is that the work you put in today will give you results in 90 days. I hate to break this to you, but the new year is in less than 90 days… so get to work on next year by executing on a marketing plan now. If you are in need of a marketing plan/ideas/what to do to drum up business, there are tons of resources out there, but feel free to give us a call and we will put our heads together to create a plan that’s just right for you.
Also, Save the Date on your calendars for November 10th, 2022, at 12:00 MT, when our very own Chief Economist at First American, Mark Fleming, will be hosting a webinar to share his insight on what is happening. Look for an email invitation in the coming week!
Cheers,
Dori VanLone and Kyle Snyder