Boulder Improves in National Housing Study

The Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released their third quarter housing report last week. As a whole the United States housing stock declined in value for the first time since 1994. Locally we are making positive progress.

There are 287 ranked metropolitan areas in the U.S. and Boulder ranked 126th in 1 year home appreciation, with 3.06%. During the second quarter of this year we had a one year rate of 2.25%, which ranked us 185th in the country. They also track quarterly numbers. For the third quarter this year we had an appreciation rate of .14%, basically breakeven. This ranked us 127th. Of the 287 ranked areas, 83 had price depreciation during the quarter. We actually fell back a bit on the quarterly numbers. During the second quarter of this year we had an appreciation rate of 1.44%. This ranked us 46th in the country.

The one year appreciation rate for the United States was 1.79%, down from 3.19% reported in the second quarter. Colorado ranked 36th in annual appreciation with 2.23%. Last quarter we were ranked 37th with a 2.95% rate.

Remember that the real estate market is local. Even the numbers for Boulder can’t be characterized as one market. The Boulder MSA includes the entire county an there is certainly a difference between the rate of appreciation in Boulder and those in Longmont.

I will report on the top 20 and bottom 20 market in a later post.

Note: an city in Colorado is ranked #3 on the list for appreciation!