What You Need To Know

2009 Year End

Sellers
Average sales prices in the Denver Metro area increased 100% from 1992 through 1998 and an additional 50% from 1999 to 2004.  If you purchased during or after 2005, you may be down 15%.  These percentages really vary by area.  Highlands Ranch and Aurora South held up best, down just 1% for 2009.

We are mostly through the sub-prime lending mess; but now have the “adjustable rate, interest only and no principal reduction” payment adjustments coming up, which even with rates so low, will hit some owners with 62% payment increases.  Seventy percent (70%) of homeowners in foreclosure don’t even talk to their lender; but with recent new Short Sale guidelines, it’s worth a try if hardship has hit you.  Ninety-nine percent (99%) of all large labor markets in the U.S. lost jobs in 2009, with six areas losing over 100,000 jobs.  In the Denver Metro area, 58,000 workers were laid off through April last year; and January and July were the peak months for layoffs (job data from the Denver Business Journal. 

Roughly a million people came to Colorado in the 1990’s.  Figuring two-income households, the 669, 600 jobs created then took care of everyone.  Quite a different picture in the 2000’s; with 870,537 newcomers and just 57,500 new jobs (The Denver Post).

In 1987, the nadir of the last real estate downturn, there were 29,976 re-sales in Metro Denver (Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties) in a population of approximately 1,848,319.  In 2008, possibly the nadir of this downturn, there were 36,000 re-sales (a 20% increase) in a population of 2.58 million (a 40% increase).

Buyers
There are incentives now for Buyers who currently own a home and the first-time Buyer incentive has been extended.  It’s still a good time for Buyers.