September 2009 – Boulder County Real Estate Sales Statistics

by neil kearney | Oct 14, 2009 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics

The slideshow below consists of 10 annotated slides showing the current real estate market conditions in Boulder County.  The charts include: total sales, median price, inventory, under contract %, absorption rate by type and price range and sales by price range.  Please let me know if you have any questions about Boulder CO real estate.  For best viewing hit full screen.

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Boulder County Real Estate Market Trends September 2009 –

Boulder County Real Estate Sales – September 2009

by neil kearney | Oct 7, 2009 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics

September was a pretty good month for sales in Boulder County.  The chart above shows the combined sales of all homes and condos by month since January 2004.  Year-to-date sales are off 23% from last year, that is is bad news.  The good news is that closings in September were down just 7%, the best showing of month over month sales so far this year.

when looking at the chart in general keep in mind that when looking at the years 2004 through mid 2007 you can discount the sales for comparative purposes because of the easy credit conditions of that time.  Effectively, 25% of all sales were going to buyers that should not have been able to qualify for a loan.  It is tough to compete with that now that our current norm is that 5 different underwriters scrutinize each file.  Yes, we are down 23% from last year and that makes sense, but down 60% from 2006, that is just funny math.

Boulder Real Estate Market Trends

by neil kearney | Oct 2, 2009 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics

The market is starting to lose a bit of the summer steam, but not as much as you may think.  This past week 87 properties went under contract in the county.  This is the low water mark since I started tracking this weekly data in April.  End of month closings were strong as usual.  There were fewer homes coming on the market (down 18 from last week) but more price reductions.  My thought is that the market will continue to perform fairly well through the end of October.  At that point a holiday slowdown is normal.

Inventory by Price Range – Boulder County

by neil kearney | Sep 28, 2009 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics

A statistic that I have been tracking over the past couple of years in the absorption rate.  This is a very theoretical statistic, meaning that the underlying assumptions are flawed, but it is very useful to compare the relative strength of different market segments.  There are two flawed premises.  The first is that the past is a good indicator for the future (not always true).  The other is that the market will stand still until all of the existing properties are sold (absolutely not true).

The goal of finding an absorption rate is to figure out how long it would take to sell all of the existing inventory assuming that sales will continue at their historical rate and that no new listings will come on the market.  I look back one year to find the average sales rate.  This is a conservative way to do it and others use shorter time horizons and find greater volatility.  In the end if you are consistent across the data this statistic tells you how well sales are going.  It answers the question; “how long would it take to sell all of the homes on the market”.

The charts below show three years of data for both single family and attached homes in Boulder County.  The two variables of the ratio are sales rate and number of homes on the market.  The number of homes on the market is very similar to what it was last year and in most cases below where it was two years ago.  The increase in the absorbtion rate has everything to do with the decrease of sales over the last few years.  This is no surprise to those who have been reading this blog for any amount of time, but it is interesting to see the data across price ranges.

The number of months it would take to sell all active homes is higher in every category when you price range when you compare it to September 2007.  When comparing it to a year ago the separation begins above $350,000.

Attached dwellings (condos) have a much tighter dispersion but as makes sense, as the prices rise the longer it would take to sell the inventory.

Boulder County Weekly Real Estate Index

by neil kearney | Sep 25, 2009 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics

Boulder County Real Estate Market Activity Index

by neil kearney | Sep 11, 2009 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics

The above data suggests a continued drop in activity, but I am seeing a bit of a surge in the overall activity this week.  Much of the activity that is going on now will result in contracts weeks down the road but it is an encouraging sign and fall won’t fall without a fight!