by neil kearney | Dec 5, 2007 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics
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!
by neil kearney | Nov 26, 2007 | Statistics
Under Contract Ratio
Sales Activity Surges in November
Traditionally our market peaks out in May or June, goes soft in August, surges in September and October and then slows down considerably after Halloween. This year our fall surge came during late October and November. Sales data is not yet in but I also track the percentage of homes that are under contract and that seems to be a pretty good gauge of market activity.
The charts below show the percentage of homes that are under contract in different market segments on both October 8, 2007 and November 26, 2007.
The percentage of single homes under contract is up in Boulder, Longmont, Boulder County as a whole and Weld County. It is down in Louisville (still the hottest market by percentages) and just slightly in Lafayette.
The percentage of attached dwellings under contract is up in all areas but Louisville.
I’m hoping that these strong indicators lead to a strong finish to the 4th quarter in terms of total number of sales.
by neil kearney | Nov 13, 2007 | For Buyers, For Sellers, Real Estate 101, Statistics
What is the value of a home? The quick answer is what a Buyer will pay for it. Most people when they ask that question are looking for n exact value or at the very least a range. Traditionally people have called Realtors or appraisers to answer 
the question “how much is my house worth”. Today getting a value is only a few key strokes away. A persons home is most likely their largest investment and people are understandably curious about where their investment stands. This curiosity leads to lots of traffic for the website Zillow.com.
I hear it all the time, “Zillow has my house valued at X”. Many times, this value is incorrect and I then have to work extra hard in proving what I think is the correct value. Therefore, I thought I would run some numbers and see how accurate Zillow.com actually is in my market. This is what I found:
The Method:
- Find all homes that have sold in the City of Boulder for the past month. (there were 58, so this is a limited sample size)
- Obtain the estimate of value from Zillow.com.
- Compare the sold value to the Zillow value in the form of a ratio.
- Find the standard deviation to find out how accurate each value is. The larger the standard deviation the more each of the values in the data set varied. For example if you found the the Zillow value was 100% correct with a standard deviation of 1%, you would know that Zillow was nearly perfect.
The Results:
There were 58 sales of single family homes in the City of Boulder between October 12th and November 11th. The price ranged from $245,000 to $2,800,000.
- The average ratio of Zillow prices to actual sold values was 99.4%. To put it another way, if you looked at the average Zillow.com price it would be just .6% lower than the actual value. Good right? Not so fast.
- The average was nearly right on the money but the individual values ranged from 158.2% of value to 48% of value a huge dispersion. The Standard Deviation for the entire data set is 18.4%. In other words the values are 99% correct +- 18%. A huge discrepancy. On a $600,000 home that would mean a the Zillow estimate is $600,000 +- $108,000.
- I next broke up the data set into three equal groups; sales up to $500,000, Sales up to $715,000 and the remaining 19 sales up to $2,800,000.
- For the lowest price range the Zillow value was 100.7% with a standard deviation of 10%.
- For the middle price range the Zillow value was 103% with a standard deviation of 14.6%.
- For the top price range the Zillow value was 94.8% with a standard deviation of 26.07%.
Conclusions:
- In the Boulder market Zillow is better at estimating the value of lower priced homes.
- As the prices rise the variables of bedrooms and baths matter less and the finish quality as well as intrinsic values such as location and view become more important. These later qualities are not easily picked up by a mathematical algorithm.
- Overall, Zillow is a fun way to look at a home but the accuracy varies so much that if you are serious in getting the right value you still need to call a Realtor or appraiser.
by neil kearney | Oct 31, 2007 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics
Long Term Trends
Day-to-day it is sometimes easy to forget that real estate is a cyclical market. It is helpful to step back and look at a broader view. I recently compared sales, dollar volume, median price and sales price to list price ratio (average negotiation) from January to mid-October for the years 2000-2007 for all sales in Boulder County. Here is what I found.
- The number of sales has modulated. First it decreased right after 9/11. Then it increased to record highs only to have fallen since late 2005.
- The dollar volume has followed the same pattern but the curve is much more subtle due to the increase in median prices.
The median price has continued to rise at a rate averaging 4.6%.
The average negotiation has increased since 2000 but not as much as you might think. During the hot market of 2000 the average negotiation was 1.22%, now it is 3.05%.
by neil kearney | Oct 19, 2007 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics
Quick Market Facts
- Median price of a single family home in Boulder County – $374,000
- Median price of an attached dwelling in Boulder County – $210,900
- Median price of a single family home in the City of Boulder – $550,000
- Median price of an attached dwelling in the City of Boulder – $239,000
- Average days to receive an acceptable offer in Boulder County – 76 days
- Number of months of all inventory in Boulder County – 7.5
- Current number of active listings in Boulder County – 3,179
- Number of those listings that are under contract – 374 (11.7%)
Our market is doing well when compared to many other markets around the country. But it is
still competitive, 88% of all homes on the market have not yet found a buyer. It would take 7.5 months to sell all of the available inventory given our current sales rate.
Away from the stats for the moment I have noticed that the showing rate for my listings has increased this month when compared to September. Lots of buyers looking at many houses before they choose 1. I have also heard of many people in town for relocation trips, those are buyers for next year.
by neil kearney | Sep 13, 2007 | Statistics
Sales in August Up
The sales of homes in Boulder County showed an increase from the same month last year. This ends a trend of fewer same month sales that stretches back 15 months. Median prices were also up during the month. A bit of good news amid a storm of bad news about real estate in the media. We are
definitely better off than many areas in the country and for that I am thankful.
