BOULDER REAL ESTATE NEWS & NATIONAL STATISTICS – June 10, 2022

Local Market Update – Boulder County

88 properties went under contract, in contrast with 101 in 2018, 117 in 2019, 111 in 2020, and 90 in 2021.

Year-to-date under-contracts remain lower, with 1679 thus far in 2022.  At this time in 2018, there were 1950 under-contracts; 2019 had 2048; 2020 had 1770; and 2021 had 2008 under-contracts. So, our total this year is still lower than the number we had in 2020, having had 2 months of shutdown under our belts.

This reflects a previous overall lack of inventory in the market and now a reduction in buyers.

The lowest inventory levels in the previous 4 years were:

2018 (end of Jan): Boulder County 444,

City of Boulder 171

2019 (end of Dec): Boulder County 652, City of Boulder 256

2020 (end of Feb): Boulder County 719, City of Boulder 327

2021 (end of Mar): Boulder County 319, City of Boulder 190

So, our Boulder realtor teams’ takeaway is that City of Boulder inventory levels have risen to some recent historic lows. Boulder County inventory, while not robust, is better than it was at the lowest points of 2018 and 2021.

For reference, the high points in these years were:

2018 (end of Aug): Boulder County 822, City of Boulder 392

2019 (end of Aug): Boulder County 1309, City of Boulder 577

2020 (end of May): Boulder County 1017, City of Boulder 496

2021 (end of July): Boulder County 511, City of Boulder 234

Considering that we were (as an aggregate) largely in a seller’s market for 2018-2021, sellers should feel confident that inventory levels could expand some and houses will still likely sell without issue if the home is in alignment on location/condition/price and demand continues at a decent clip.

Buyer demand (nationally) is still slightly above pre-pandemic levels, see the chart below. We just had a lender call, advertising a low 4% rate for 10% down jumbo loans, with no mortgage insurance, homes priced from $725k – 1.7mm. Call us for details.

Buyers are usually pickier and slower when there is more inventory, so expect the pace of the market to slow some.

Again, super important, last week we had our highest number of price changes so far this year, at 68.  This is 14% of our total Boulder County actives, reflecting the decrease in seller confidence that has occurred/is occurring in our market.

Because these homes are built for a more well-heeled buyer, they are typically bigger.  The typical high-fire-risk home purchased in April was 2,000 square feet, while the typical low-risk home was just 1,706 square feet.

When Americans were moving out of the cities in droves into suburbs and rural areas, the price premiums for these high-risk homes increased. Median high-risk home prices increased 51.7% from April 2020 in the past 2 years.  The median increase for low-risk homes from April 2020 was 40.9%.