Fun Facts • February 9, 2024

Above Water

by Windermere Evergreen

A dynamic that gives us even more confidence about the housing market is the amount of equity that homeowners have in their property.

Equity is of course the difference between the value of the property and the amount that is owed against it.

In Larimer County, 53% of homeowners have at least 50% equity in their homes. In Weld County, the number is 38%.

It is interesting to note that Nationally, only 1.8% of homeowners are ‘underwater,’ meaning that the value is lower than what is owed against the property.

In 2009, 26% of homeowners were underwater.

Fun Facts • February 2, 2024

Forecast Takeaways

by Windermere Evergreen

Here are some of the big takeaways from our annual Market Forecast with Economist Matthew Gardner:

Interest rates will continue to trend down during the year and reach 6.08% by the end of 2024.
Home prices will have another year of modest gains increasing 2.0% to 2.5% in Northern Colorado
53% of homeowners in Larimer County and 38% of homeowners in Weld County are “Equity Rich” meaning that they have at least 50% equity in their homes.
Inventory levels will increase in 2024 but will remain below normal which protects prices from any sort of major decline

To receive a copy of the full slide deck from the Forecast, feel free to reach out to us!

Fun Facts • January 26, 2024

Last Chance to Register

by Windermere Evergreen

The 10th Annual Windermere Real Estate Market Forecast is coming up next week. Go ahead and register now to save your seat.

Back by popular demand as our Keynote Speaker is Economist Matthew Gardner. He will answer the big questions on your mind about interest rates and price appreciation. He will also talk about the impacts of the upcoming election on real estate. The presentation is sure to be interesting and entertaining like it always is.

We will be live on Tuesday, January 30th at the Marriott in Fort Collins from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm. Register at www.ColoradoForecast.com.

Fun Facts • January 19, 2024

More Normal Range

by Windermere Evergreen

The length of time that it takes for a property to sell is settling into a more normal range.

“Days on Market” is an insightful statistic that counts how long it takes for a property to go from live on the market to sold.

Today measurement stands at 72 days in Larimer County and 74 days in Weld County.

From January 2021 to November 2022, Days on Market never went above 60. This time period was defined by incredibly high demand and drastically low supply.

The time frame of January 2018 to December 2020, which was more ‘normal,’ had Days on Market between 60 and 90 days.

Fun Facts • January 12, 2024

Out of the Gates

by Windermere Evergreen

How is the year starting? All of us in the real estate industry are especially curious to see how 2024 is starting off after the first slow real estate year in a long time.

Rates have settled down and are trending down.

Prices have shown resilience and continue to go up.

But, how about transactions? Are they picking up after a year that saw an 18% decline in the number of closed residential properties?

It turns out the year is starting off strong but not unusually strong.

Pending transactions are up in Larimer County 7% year over year and up 3% in Weld County.

So, we are already seeing signs that 2024 will be a year of growth compared to last year.

Fun Facts • January 5, 2024

No Drop

by Windermere Evergreen

The numbers are in and it turns out that not even 8% rates could make prices drop in 2023.

When mortgage rates jumped this last year, many people believed that home values would fall as a result.

The fact that prices stayed flat in 2023 even though interest rates doubled between March 2022 and October 2023, shows that values along the Front Range are incredibly resilient.

Here are the 2023 average prices along the Front Range and their change compared to 2022:

Larimer County: $621,538 / 1%

Weld County: $527,600 / 1%

Metro Denver: $679,710 / 0%

Fun Facts • December 15, 2023

Price Plummet

by Windermere Evergreen

For anyone waiting for home prices to drop before making a buying decision, there is good news.

The recent plummet in mortgage rates means that home prices, effectively, just took a big dip.

Rates have gone down by 1% in the last 45 days which means that a prospective home buyer’s payment is 10% less today than what it would have been at the end of October.

For example, the Principal and Interest payment for a $500,000 loan is $341 less today than what it was 45 days ago.

So, from a buyer’s perspective, prices have gone down by 10% in a very short time.

Fun Facts • December 8, 2023

Inventory in Perspective

by Windermere Evergreen

A significant dynamic in the Front Range market is the relatively low inventory. This is the main reason why prices are stable despite higher rates.

Here is some perspective on the inventory of homes for sale to help give some context.

Today’s inventory is:

Half of the long-term average going back 30 years
¼ of the all-time high in 2006
3 times the all-time low of 2021

Fun Facts • December 1, 2023

Most Surprising News

by Windermere Evergreen

The most surprising piece of news for our friends and clients is that prices are essentially flat compared to last year. People find that surprising given what interest rates have done over the last 18 months. They wonder, how could prices not fall significantly after interest rates jumped considerably?

The answer is the fundamental economic lesson of supply and demand.

There is enough demand in the market for the current supply to keep prices stable even in an environment of higher rates.

Now that rates are (finally) trending down, it gives us even more confidence about the continued growth of real estate prices along the Front Range.

Here is a look at how home prices compare to one year ago:

Larimer County = Down 0.8%

Weld County = Up 3.4%

Metro Denver = Up 0.8%

Fun Facts • November 17, 2023

Highly Active

by Windermere Evergreen

In addition to tracking the average price for sold properties, it is also interesting to track the average price for active properties.

Asking prices are up across all markets when compared to the same time last year.

Here are the average list prices for residential properties along the Front Range:

Larimer County = $893,000 (8% higher than last year)
Weld County = $702,000 (6% higher than last year)
Metro Denver = $847,000 (5% higher than last year)

These asking prices are higher than average sales prices by approximately 30%. This is because there are many high-end properties on the market which take longer to sell and which pull up the average.