Sellers Market Pushes Home Prices Up
The housing market is unbelievable. Maybe you’ve heard this while hanging out with neighbors or friends or simply in line at the grocery store. Boulder Co house for sale prices have skyrocketed the past few years. View the graph below and you see that while home average prices were fairly average for years, something changed about 2013. At that moment, homes started going up in value.
Blame it on the Sellers Market Boulder is experiencing.
Is Now A Good Time To List My Boulder Co House For Sale?
Now is probably the best moment this year to list your home for sale. The ultimate best moment was likely sometime back in 2015. If you have a DeLorean time machine squirreled away, go back 12 months and list. Otherwise, now remains a very good time to place your house for sale. Probably.
I say probably, because after you sell, you’ll need to buy. Now, if you are moving away from Boulder, with your bags of loot, you will be all set. However, if after selling you are going to start looking for your dream Boulder Co house for sale to purchase, keep in mind – that same pesky sellers market is going to make buying difficult. There are some exceptions to the rule.
Exceptions are great. If you are selling on the lower end (these days that around $600K) and buying way up, keep in mind the very top of the housing market is more similar to a Buyer’s Market.
So, if you are buying in the upper reaches of the market – say over $2,500,000, this may be a good market.
For the mere mortals, with everyday budgets, be prepared for multiple offers, renting while you wait for the perfect home, competitive offers that give up rights, such as a home inspection. And you probably want to list sooner, rather than later. The statistics suggest we are moving slowly away from the Sellers Market, probably into a neutral market.
Boulder Home Buyer Hint
Take a look a the above graph, and I notice that the average home price falls around the 1st of the year. Winter can be a land of opportunity for intrepid buyers seeking a great deal on a Boulder Co house for sale.
Statistics Show Slowing Trends In Boulder Colorado
Keeping in mind that we have just about the exact same number of home sales so far in 2016 as we did in 2015, the stats suggest the market is slowing. One statistic that strengthens this argument is the Average Days To Contract.
2011 and prior, we were not in a Sellers Market. If you look at the current trends, we are fast approaching the same Days to Contract times as we experienced before the run up.
Note to Sellers! Now is still a great time to sell. But the party isn’t going to last forever. Of course for every statistic out there, there is another to counter it. Take the absorption rate. This one looks at the level of inventory and demand.
Here’s how absorption rate works. You take all the active houses and divide by a month, and this gives you how long the market would take to sell all the houses for sale if no new inventory came to market. The absorption rate for Boulder remains insanely low. And relatively steady. See chart: absorption-rate-boulder-co
Across all price ranges in Boulder, this number is under ten weeks. But in practice, for entry level to moderately priced homes, it remains common to see language suggesting, “in the event of multiple offers, bring your highest and best…” and houses sell in days.
Boulder Real Estate News Recommends:
- The Boulder Daily Camera heralded the news earlier this year when home prices topped the one million dollar mark. Read about it all here.
- Find your million buck Boulder Co house for sale now. This search focuses just on the $1.1 to 1.2 million dollar range!
Same data as I discussed above, in another format. This is courtesy of the Boulder Area Realtor Association. Days on market is increasing, inventory continues to fall in the Boulder market. Part of that is simply – if you sell, where will you move? There are no houses to move to, so folks are waiting before placing their Boulder Co house for sale. IMHO, when the market balances to a neutral market, provided mortgage interest rates stay even, I think we’ll see more sales, inventory.