This charming home at 327 6th Ave in Old Town Longmont offers 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a fully refinished kitchen with soft close drawers and cabinets, newer paint, updated bathroom, and refinished floors all in 2016. Great lot! One block from a park, and within walking distance to Main Street. Enjoy spring and summer on the flagstone patio and watch the Iris bloom. All appliances stay; including deep freezer and washer and dryer. Hot water heater replaced in 2017. Contact Stephanie Woodard for your private showing at (970) 215-2676 for more information or click the link below for more details.

http://windermerenoco.com/listing/90295242

This past Wednesday and Thursday evenings we had the pleasure of hosting our annual Market Forecast events in Denver and Fort Collins.

Thank you to the 700 people who attended. We appreciate your support!

In case you missed the events, here are some highlights including our forecast for price appreciation in 2019:
• In 2018 Prices went up:
o 8% in Fort Collins
o 8% in Loveland
o 8.5% in Greeley
o 8% in Metro Denver

• Inventory is (finally) showing signs of increasing:
o Up 25% in Northern Colorado
o Up 45% in Metro Denver

• There are distinct differences in months of inventory across different price ranges = opportunity for the move up buyer.

• There are several reasons why we don’t see a housing bubble forming:
o New home starts along the Front Range are roughly 60% of pre-bubble highs 14 years ago.
o Americans have more equity in their homes than ever, $6 Trillion!
o The average FICO score of home buyers is significantly higher than the long-term average.
o The home ownership rate is back to the long-term average.

• Our 2019 Price Appreciation Forecast:
o 6% in Fort Collins
o 6% in Loveland
o 7% in Greeley
o 6% in Metro Denver

If you would like a copy of the presentation, go ahead and reach out to us. We would be happy to put it in your hands!

Great news for buyers! There are more homes to choose from. It seems there is relief from the days of drastically low inventory levels.

Compared to a year ago, residential inventory levels are up:
• 9% in Northern Colorado (Larimer & Weld Counties)
• 45% in Metro Denver (wow!)

________________________________________

You can get many more fun facts like these plus get our predictions on the 2019 market by joining our annual Market Forecast. Just click the link below!

https://www.eventbrite.com/o/windermere-real-estate-12011801121

Here’s what our Chief Economist, Matthew Gardner, thinks about the 2019 U.S. Housing Market. He is regarded as one of the Country’s experts on real estate and is frequently quoted by leading industry publications.

• Existing Home Sales up 1.9% to 5.4 million units
• Home Prices up 4.4%
• New Home Sales up 6.9% to 695,000 (the highest since 2007)

If you want to see all of Matthew’s predictions including where interest rates are headed, get signed up for our annual Forecast. Click the link below!

https://www.eventbrite.com/o/windermere-real-estate-12011801121

All the talk of the market cooling off might make someone think that prices must be going down.

The truth is prices are still going up.

Here are the latest year-over-year appreciation numbers from the Federal Housing Finance Authority (they track 243 markets all across the Country):

Colorado Springs 11.44%

Greeley 10.53%

Denver 9.97%

Boulder 9.89%

Fort Collins/Loveland 8.64%

Anytime the market cools off we sometimes hear prospective buyers say “I think I’ll wait for the market to correct, then I’ll buy after prices come way down.”

The reality is this… History shows that this wouldn’t be a good strategy.

Our go-to source on price appreciation is the Federal Housing Finance Authority who produces a quarterly home price index.  They have been tracking Larimer County for 41 years.

Their numbers show:

• Yearly prices have decreased only 6 times in history
• The average amount of that decrease is only 1.7%

So, someone who is waiting for prices to drop:

• Might be waiting a long time
• Might be disappointed that prices didn’t drop by all that much

Here are two recently-announced pieces of really good news for home buyers.

• The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority recently raised the income limit for their down payment assistance program to $115,600.

Now more people can get help with a down payment.

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raised their conforming loan limits so that more people can use a conforming loan and not be forced to use a ‘jumbo’ loan.

Contact us if you would like to hear how these pieces of news could help you.

The Front Range may have lost out on Amazon’s HQ2, but that doesn’t mean their company won’t affect our economy.

Denver was in the running for Amazon’s massive new second headquarters that supposedly would bring 50,000 new high-paying jobs and $5 Billion of investment.

In the end Amazon chose to split the headquarters among two East-Coast cities and many in Colorado breathed a sigh of relief.

But they are will continue to be an economic force in our state.

Over the past two years, Amazon has greatly expanded its footprint in Metro Denver, opening up a sorting center in Aurora, fulfillment centers in Aurora and Thornton, a Prime Now center in Denver and a new delivery center in Centennial.

They will soon have 3,000 workers here and that number is expected to grow significantly.