Colorado real estate market

Yeah, the market is insane. Our house value in Highlands Ranch went up 22% in the last 12 months. Now that both of our daughters have moved out my wife and I want to downsize, however, we cannot find any reasonably priced houses smaller than ours to downsize to.

 

Things are crazy here that's for sure... Front range prices are catching up to the insanity up here in Summit now it looks like... it's madness up here and doesn't seem to be slowing down. I wouldn't even be able to be close to affording my house here now compared to 2017 when I purchased it. Just got lucky that the sellers were happy to have a local full timer buy the home instead of the inflated offers from out of staters/investment groups they were getting. Hopefully something like that will come your way too!

 

My wife is VP of operations for a large mortgage origination company here in Oregon and says atleast 50% of buyers are from out of state and roughly 75% of those are "sight unseen" conglomerate investors bidding huge money banking on exponentially increasing values. This is the type of buyer bidding 75k over with no inspections or even so much as a walk through of the home. Hard to compete with that.

 

Someone from California

 

This aligns with my recent anecdotes...

I recently sold my home and had an offer for 50K over asking from one of these companies that operates as a "rent to own" landlord. For various reasons I didn't take it, one of them being the cost of "repairs" they wanted to make the home "rental ready"

My cousin sold his around the same time to Zillow for 75K over.

 

I find this incredibly disturbing and I really don’t see how this could possibly be sustainable for communities. And if it’s happening nationwide, that’s a really scary thought. You’re basically being pushed out of the market by the same assholes who will turn around and charge you something god awful to rent the same house you’ll never be able to afford…

How can that not lead to a horrifically bleak outlook for normal people who just want something even remotely close to that piece of the American dream that their parents had?

 

Can I cry??

what happened to us was that we got kicked out by our landlord cause the house was being sold. So now we have to find a place to stay (currently staying at parents house, only 2 of them in a 5 bedroom.)

rent is $2200 and we want to buy a house with a budget of 400k….and that will buy us a very basic house.

 

Just to add to Jason's info, the other whammy in this is since the 2008 crash, New home building has dropped and even today with all this demand they are still around 50% of "new starts" when compared to 2007. Some of this is due to labor force (Not to mention current material issues) but they are also rewarded by doing this (reduced supply) with higher sales prices.

 

maybe a sign of good news, I just read that Zillow has stopped buying for the time being. Sounds like they were losing money hand over fist. SO, maybe, just maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel for new home buyers coming soon?

A co-worker and his wife sold their house a few months ago and found themselves priced out to the point that he quit his job and they packed up and moved to Florida, were apparently, they could afford to buy.

 

My biggest fear is over spending on a home and end up being completely upside down by over 100k. What is going on right now is completely un natural and if its all the wall street fuckers buying up homes like they are beanie babies, then either a crash is imminent or we are all going to end up being servants to a master.

 

That is what was happening with me up here, sorry to hear it ... I got tired of renting and just got lucky timing wise. We are having staffing issues up here everywhere because local workers have nowhere to live, or if they do they are getting booted for the house to sell. Hope you are able to find something that works for you!

 

I see no crash coming to Colorado anytime soon, unlikely much of a dip. Real estate and rent prices have gone nowhere but up in the close to 20 years I’ve lived here and have skyrocketed in the last 10 or so after the legal weed and nation wide media exposure and now the crazy COVID market. Even in ‘08 things didn’t dip much. People are moving here in droves and out of staters are buying up second and third homes to AirBnb/VRBO. With climate change (weather you personally believe in it or not) I think people are viewing Colorado as a likely place for good quality of life in the the years to come. Cool temperatures, inland, low natural disasters (aside from forest fires) plus we control the water for most of the west. That along with the many other factors that make Colorado an enticing place to live. I hope I’m wrong but I imagine it will only get more expensive and congested in years to come. I shoulda bought in years ago… Guess what people were telling me then? “Wait a couple years, the market is gonna drop.”

 

The rent for the apartment I use to have is $250 cheaper than what it used to be.

 

That hasn’t been the experience I have had or most anybody I know. But good to hear a there’s at least one example out there!

 

it's no wonder so many people are buying up houses only to rent them out, though. I bought my home here (also my first home) in early 2013. It's always been my long term plan to eventually rent it out and let the renters pay off the house. After all, my mortgage payment is cheaper than literally anything I could rent in my area.

 

Lost out on 10 offers since early 2021. Backed out on new construction in Monument since the builder got shady with their build times and amenities offered.

At this point going to give up and wait for Vegas or Phoenix to plummet down and commute from there lol.

 

This is exactly where im at. Colorado born and raised, solid job, fair salary, only been in the work force full time after school for 2.5 years and can hardly afford to buy a decent home. There might be a light at the end of the tunnel because my agent just got a call for a house I got beat out on two weeks ago. Sounds like the buyer is going to terminate and see the sellers agent wants to know if I still have interest.

 

I wasn't able to afford my first home until I was 29...and I thought it would never happen. Idk how 20-somethings are supposed to be pulling it off now.

Only advice is to do an FHA 1st time buyers load since the down payment requirement is much much lower than a conventional loan. I think I put down $6k total including closing costs with my initial FHA loan, on a $180k house. Something like 3.5% compared to 10-20% on a conventional loan.

 

Im looking at 5% down but given the house prices i need to cough up approx. 50k cash to close.

 

daaaaaang. I consider myself extremely lucky with timing. If that was me today, I'd need to go into my 401k...