Attendance at the National Association of Realtors’ annual legislative meetings in mid-May reinforced Ken Hotard’s opinion of Colorado’s and the Boulder area’s real estate: it is holding its own compared with many other communities throughout the country.
Though the sales statistics for the year ending March 31 showed declines in sales in almost every Boulder market and prices continuing to drop in many of those markets compared with the previous year, other markets in the nation are having “so much more difficulty” than Colorado, metro Denver and Boulder-Broomfield, says the senior vice president of public relations for the Boulder Area Realtor Association.
Besides California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, states in the so-called “rust belt” – Michigan, Indiana and Ohio – are in much more dire straits than Colorado, Hotard says. “Those economies have to completely restructure themselves around different sets of industries and business models,” he says. “They’re facing much greater challenges than here in Colorado and the southwest generally. You wouldn’t want to own a home in Phoenix, Ariz. – especially if you bought it two years ago.”
Hotard says he is seeing an increase in listing and buyer activity, with several markets showing modest improvement in sales volume. Overall sales were up slightly in April compared with March and the attached market remained unchanged.
Prices continue to hold up, but with so fewer homes selling, the average and median prices are not indicative of value across the marketplace because of the lower numbers of samples and greater variability, Hotard says. Usually the prices are based on 80 to 110 homes selling per month in Boulder, compared with 39 sold this April.
“We think we’ll continue modest improvements in sales moving into the summer,” he says. “Don’t expect a tremendous amount of change through the balance of this year unless the credit dam breaks.
“Boulder can be on front edge leading the nation out of the recession,” Hotard adds. “My expectation is that we can turn this corner in second half of 2010. That should be enough time for the credit issue to improve and for job growth. The two will go hand in hand.”
And it’s the Realtors who embrace the changes the industry is experiencing, who do what they need to make their businesses and clients successful, who will lead the industry when real estate turns that corner, Hotard says.
“It’s encouraging to see larger numbers of these professionals embracing the future,” he says.
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