colorado’s housing market redefines rocky mountain high in april
/
By Aldo Svaldi | Published on May 15, 2021
The median of a single-family home sold in Colorado crossed above $500,000 for the first time ever in April and is running at an elevation 1.5 times higher than the U.S. median, according to a monthly update from the Colorado Association of Realtors.
“For the short term, there is no calm in sight. It’s a real estate storm and buying frenzy that does not appear to be burning out soon,” said Colorado Springs Realtor Patrick Muldoon in comments accompanying the report.
The median sales price represents the midpoint, or where half the homes sell for more and half sell for less. Colorado’s midpoint reached $502,000 for single-family homes last month, pushed up by a 19.5% price gain the past year.
Median prices get less skewed when high-end home sales become more dominant, which is now happening across the state, especially along the Front Range and in the mountain resorts. Reflecting a richer mix, the average price of a single-family home sold in the state has risen 36.4% the past year to $661,511.
Nationally, the median price of a single-family home sold in March, the most recent month available, was $334,500, up 18.4%, according to the National Association of Realtors. Colorado is tracking with the rest of the country for home price appreciation, but it started out at a higher point. Single-family home values, measured at the median sales price, are 50% higher than for the country overall, and showing no signs of backing down.
A mortgage qualification calculator from NerdWallet estimates buyers last month needed to make about $100,000 a year to afford a middle-of-the-road house in Colorado — assuming they came with a 10% downpayment. The affordability equation is worse in metro Denver, where the median-priced crossed $500,000 several months ago and is marching toward $600,000, and in Boulder, which is above $700,000.
Out of 183 metro areas that the NAR tracks, Boulder had the sixth-highest median price for a single-family home sold in the first quarter at $726,600, while metro Denver ranked 14th with a median sold price of $554,400. Of the two other Colorado metros tracked, Fort Collins came in 21st and Colorado Springs 29th.
And markets are even crazier up in the mountains, where remote workers, more likely remote entrepreneurs, executives and professionals, are dropping down big dollars. In Eagle County, the median price of a single-family home sold has more than doubled the past year from $742,000 on 28 sales in April 2020 to $1.5 million on 67 sales in April 2021.
Summit County, once a more affordable version of Eagle, has seen its single-family median home price go from $750,000 on 21 sales a year ago to nearly $1.7 million on 57 sales last month, a 126.5% increase. Eagle County, however, still maintains a price advantage on the condo side, which is a larger market in resort areas.
And no ritzy ski resort was required for home prices to soar this year. Five Colorado counties beat Summit in terms of annual percentage home price gains, including Las Animas, up 475%, Mineral up 194%, Costilla up 134%, Ouray up 131.6% and Conejos up 130.5%.
Granted, all those counties had fewer than 10 single-family homes close in April, and in the case of Conejos only two. But the numbers this year show housing markets across all of Colorado are facing extreme market conditions, not just the ones along the Front Range.