April market stats show buyers are slowly springing into action

Boulder County’s real estate market continued to push on toward recovery in April, with sales and prices of single-family homes creeping upward.

Both average and median prices increased in every Boulder community – a phenomenon not witnessed in recent memory, even though the area’s prices have not experienced the decreases many markets throughout the nation have.

“They’re holding up extremely well,” says Ken Hotard, senior vice president of public affairs for the Boulder Area Realtor Association.

He attributed the increases in part to limited inventory, creating a more competitive environment.

“It’s a classic supply-demand situation,” Hotard says.

The sale of 257 single-family homes in April was an increase over the 212 sold in March but still down from the 346 in April 2010 – though that’s expected considering that was the last month in which the first-time and move-up buyer tax credit was available.

“We could not match the incentivized market of 2010,” Hotard says. However, April 2011’s single-family home sales “improved substantially over 2009,” which had 204 sales.

Additional good news that came with April’s real estate statistics is that sales of condominiums and townhomes were in line with March’s, holding at 75.

Hotard says that market is still having an issue with tight financing and demand is not as strong as it is with single-family homes.

While the chilly, wet weather has not helped the housing market, affordability has in both pricing and a 30-year fixed interest rate below 5 percent, he says.

With improved job creation in the area and pent-up demand, home sales should be stronger, Hotard says. Although the trend is moving upward, it’s uneven.

“Unnecessarily tight credit is continuing to constrain the market place,” he says. “In some parts of our market areas, we’re seeing lower appraisals resulting in contract cancellations. Those kinds of pressures continue to make this a challenging - although an improving - market.”

Although reports show foreclosures in many parts of Colorado are down by large numbers, “we still have a ways to go to clear out all of that distressed inventory,” Hotard says.

“I’m encouraged by the strength of our market,” he says. “My personal feeling is if we could loosen credit and make it available to a larger number of qualified borrowers, we would see substantial improvement in our market.”

The Boulder Area Realtor® Association is working with the National Association of Realtors® to encourage Congress and federal regulators to provide affordable mortgage products and guarantee a strong secondary market to support credit availability, Hotard says.

“We’re fighting battles to make sure that home ownership tax benefits are preserved in the tax code. Homeownership matters,” he says.