Where Are The Sales?
A high-level look at the Northern Colorado region shows that the number of residential sales is down 5.4% in Larimer County and up 4.7% in Weld County. This is simply comparing the number of closings from June 2018 to June 2019 versus June 2017 to June 2018.
The high-level look doesn’t tell the whole story. It get’s more interesting when we look at individual Northern Colorado cities and towns:
• Fort Collins = -8.8%
• Loveland = -5.7%
• Greeley = +11.7%
• Windsor = +16%
• Wellington = -16.9%
• Timnath = +44.1%
• Severance = +20.4%
• Johnstown = -18.7%
• Berthoud = +18.1%
• Evans = -14.7%
So, what can we learn from this? The areas with increased sales are where there is an abundance of new construction (Timnath and Severance for example).
The areas with decreased sales don’t have an abundance of new construction (Fort Collins for example).
The exceptions to this would be Wellington and Johnstown. It appears that there is price sensitivity to the new construction product now being built in these areas. Given rising costs, builders are challenged to deliver a product under $350,000 in these places.
For instance, in Wellington, between June 2017 and June 2018 there were 137 sales of new homes priced under $350,000. Today there are only 6 new homes on the market at that price point.
New Construction News!
New Home News
Nationally, sales of new homes are stronger than they have been in a long time. March was the best month since 2007 and April was the third-best month in that same time period.
This research comes from the National Association of Home Builders who show that we are on pace to sell 673,000 new homes this year across the Country. 5 years ago there were roughly 450,000 sales of new homes.
For the first four months of 2019, new home sales are 6.7% ahead of the sales pace of the initial four months of 2018.
What is interesting is that those gains have distinct regional clustering. Year-to-date sales are up 10.3% in the South, 6.7% in the West (concentrated in the Mountain states), and 1.3% in the Midwest, while recording a 17.6% decline in the Northeast.