8th Most Expensive City? Not Really
by Osman Parvez The Daily Camera and Rocky Mountain News are reporting on a new study put out by the publishers of the Economist placing Denver as the 8th most expensive city in the United States. That's ahead of Boston if you exclude housing Huh?? Housing represents a big chunk of a typical family budget and excluding it makes this survey meaningless. I think these type of surveys should factor in the cost of housing and transportation for neighboring suburbs as well as the main city. In many areas surrounding Denver, for example areas within a 30 minute commute, 3BR [...]
May, 2006 – Boulder Sales Analysis (Preliminary)
by Osman Parvez It's been a few days since I last blogged. Real estate activity with clients and terrific weather have kept me from the task. For those of you unfamiliar with Boulder in the summer, there's always something happening outdoors (today's adventure) So what's happening in the market? Here's a sneak peak at Boulder's sales numbers for May and how current inventory is shaping up as we move into the peak summer selling season. The good news is that the sluggishness of April and March seems to have dissipated. The market in May was very similar to May of [...]
CNN/Money Housing Forecast
by Osman Parvez Last week, CNN published a housing forecast for 379 metro areas nationwide. The forecast calls for... "a significant stagnation in housing prices for the United States in 2006 -- median home prices overall will inch up only 1.5 percent this year. And many metro areas will experience drops, including some of the largest, and most expensive, ones such as New York (down 2.43 percent), Los Angeles (down 3 percent) and Washington (down 1.9 percent)" Meanwhile, according to the study, all metro areas in Colorado are anticipated to appreciate in 2006. Here's the breakdown: Boulder 3.7% Colorado Springs [...]
Boulder Inventory of Homes Available
by Osman Parvez To help a prospective client, we recently did a detailed market analysis within his specified investment criteria. Along the way, we updated our full market statistics through the month of February for all local areas. The chart below is Boulder's inventory of single family homes. As you can see, inventory levels are typically seasonal here in Boulder. And for the first two months of 2006, the inventory of available properties looks to be on par with last year, a sharp contrast to areas experiencing a downturn. ---- Like this analysis? Subscribe to our client research report. [...]
Boulder Fix ‘n Flips
by Osman Parvez A few weeks ago, we prepared an analysis for a client of last year's fix 'n flips in Boulder. "Fix n' flip" defined as properties purchased, repaired or remodeled, and then resold for a substantially higher price within a few months. After analyzing 2005's sales data, I came up with four properties that were clear examples in the City of Boulder. Three projects had enough profitability to be successful, with an average purchase price of $427K, gross profit of $156K, and holding period of 188 days. One looks like it just broken even. The analysis includes "before" [...]
$1MM+ Sales in Colorado rise 27%
by Osman Parvez According to the Denver Business Journal, a new report by Cendent's Coldwell Banker (CD) places Colorado at No. 12 in its list of states with the largest volume of luxury home sales The report claims 27 percent growth in the sales volume of luxury homes, with the sales volume rising to $678 million from $535 million. California ranked No. 1 for both years, with $30.7 billion in luxury homes sold, a 19 percent increase from 2004. ---- Like this analysis? Subscribe to our client research report. Want to get blog updates via email? Click [...]
House Price Index
by Osman Parvez The housing bubble blogs are using House Price Index charts developed using HPI data from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). Perhaps you'd like to see how Boulder and Denver compare to markets where bubbles likely to exist? Ok, let's compare Boulder and Denver (green and red, respectively) with San Francisco, Boston, and Miami's real estate markets. As usual, click on the charts below for larger images. Looking at the chart above, it seems to me that when the telecom collapse followed the stock market crash, our region's real estate market cooled substantially relative to [...]
Is the Sky Falling in Boulder?
by Osman Parvez After traveling it always seems to take a few extra days to catch up on the work that piled up while I was away (hence the scarcity of blog posts). In the meanwhile, I've noticed more than a few doom and gloom news items about the real estate market. These pieces include a roundup of realtor or gadflyesque blogs on the bubble and another about buyers fleeing to Mexico. From the over-hyped sound of it, real estate is falling off a cliff and investors in particular are desperate to get out. Given that real estate isn't one [...]
Seniors Are Driving Condo/Townhome Sales
by Osman Parvez Yesterday I wrote about the steadily increasing volume of Condo sales, pointing to demographic factors as core drivers. I did a bit more digging today, spending some time on our excellent state demographer's website. (p.s. If you're looking to analyze and understand colorado demographics or get a forecast of the future, this is a great place to start.) Using 2005 as the base year, I compared projected growth of those 60yr and older to that of the total population for Boulder County. As expected, the 60 yr+ group of the population is expected to grow at a [...]
Boulder Condo & Townhome Days on Market
by Osman Parvez What about Days on Market (DOM) for Condos and Townhomes? In this segment, we see an interesting potential trend shift. Median DOM decreased while overall sales and the average DOM increased. There are several possible explanations. One is that slow moving properties create an outlyer effect. They aren't sold a few days after the typical property, they are sold at after a substantially longer period of time. Even in a slowly warming market outlying properties will continue to skew the average. Meanwhile, the drivers for attached dwelling sales are likely going to continue to increase. The first [...]
Boulder Homes Days on Market in 4Q
by Osman Parvez This morning, we're digging further into the numbers on Boulder's market. The chart below depicts the number of homes sold (still preliminary for 4Q05) relative to the days on market (DOM) for the same period. This analysis is for single family home sales, no condos or townhomes relative to average and median DOM. Why both average and median? To illustrate the consistent skew caused by outlying sales. In plain English, there are a certain number of homes that sit on the market for very long periods of time. If you only look at average numbers, these slow [...]
Boulder Real Estate: A Tale of Two Markets
by Osman Parvez Based on preliminary estimates, Boulder real estate in the 4th quarter of 2005 was a tale of two markets. As the chart below indicates, there was a split between the high and low end of the market. 4Q sales to current inventory was fairly high below $700K, with the highest ratio between $600 and 700K. Meanwhile between $700K and 1.2MM, the ratio was noticeably lower. What is sales to current inventory? Take the number of homes sold and divide by the current number of homes in inventory. This gives you a rough approximation of the relative performance [...]
Boulder 4Q Sales (preliminary)
by Osman Parvez It's still early to tell, but it looks like Boulder's market may have painted a mixed picture for the 4th quarter of 2005. Current results indicate the number of homes sold dropped a little more than 6% compared to the same period a year earlier while Condo/Townhome sales increased nearly 12% (see chart below). The number of homes sold in the 4th quarter was still 16.2% more than in 2002. Keep in mind these numbers are preliminary and are based on a small sample size (208 homes sold, 150 condo/townhomes). Statistics are dependent on brokers correctly entering [...]
Boulder Real Estate Inventory Analysis
by Osman Parvez Last month's sales and inventory evidence for Boulder (our fair city) do not support a change in fundamentals. As shown in the chart for Boulder below, October had a 10% decrease in inventory of single family homes available from the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, the number of homes sold did not change. Thus far, (in Boulder, at least) there are few signs of a real estate downturn. Keep your eye on the upcoming indicators for the big picture. If you'd like to see how neighboring communities stacked up, please contact us. --- Like this analysis? [...]
Existing Home Sales Drop?
by Osman Parvez The New York Times got it wrong. It's what happens when you want to write (or are told to) about the real estate bubble bursting, but the numbers don't exactly support your thesis. A recent NY Times piece reported a 2.7% drop in existing home sales. The author notes that homes still showed increased appreciation nationwide, "by 16.6 percent to $218,000 compared to the median -- or midpoint -- price in October 2004." Ok, given this information, a reader might think the 2.7% drop is referring to the same period, year/year (October 2005 vs 2004). Oops. The [...]
