More on the real estate market in Boulder County. Last time I presented the current under contract ratio numbers. Today I will present the inventory or absorption rate. The inventory numbers use past sales rates (I use 12 months) and current inventory to come up with a measure of activity in the market. Basically, if we could freeze the market and not allow any new listings, this measures how many months it would take to sell all of the homes currently on the market. An active, healthy market is usually has around 6 months of inventory.
First let’s look at inventory by area. Much of our market is healthy. Our sales have slowed but there are fewer homes on the market. Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont and Superior are all right around six months of inventory. Healthy, not an overabundance of homes going unsold. Boulder is a little higher at around eight months and the suburban mountains and plains come in at 13 and 11.5 months. The most current figures are represented by the green line.
Looking at this same issue but by price range tells an interesting story. For a number of reasons the lower end of our market is moving much quicker than our high end. Inventory really shows the dramatic difference between the lower end of the market and the high end. Properties below $250,000 have a 4.25 month supply (very healthy); homes between $250,000 and $500,000 have a 5.71 month supply (right where it should be); homes between $500,000 and $750,000 have a 10 month supply (a bit high but not terrible); between $750,000 and $1,000,000 have a 14.4 month supply; homes between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 have a 22.7 month supply (almost 2 years) and the 230homes listed above $1,500,000 have a 48 month supply. The highest priced homes having a four year supply might sound just awful but compare it to a year ago when this same price range came in at over 70 months! Again the most recent data is in green.
Remember that all of the current homes on the market do not sell. Four years is not an estimated time on the market. If you have a good house and price it right it will sell much quicker. The average day’s on the market is around 100 days and some are going much quicker. If you are serious about selling give me a call and we can run the numbers for your house.
