2018 a year of contrasts across Colorado markets
A strong spring in many markets across Colorado could contradict some reports of a slowing market in 2019
SUBMITTED BY COLORADO ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS
Last year was a year of tremendous contrasts across most Colorado markets, giving both sellers and buyers opportunities to take advantage of ever-changing market conditions, according to the latest monthly market trends data from the Colorado Association of REALTORS.
While both market trends experts and economists have been looking at the potential of a shifting real estate market in 2019, the evidence of softening markets is not universal across Colorado and is dependent on the neighborhood, down to the ZIP code, further reinforcing the narrative that all real estate is local.
With the volatility in the stock market, mortgage interest rates have unexpectedly dropped to 12-month lows, resuscitating interest from buyers and allowing sellers to capitalize on a reignited estate market in early 2019.
Coupled with dropping rates, affordability actually eased a bit in the later months of 2018. Statewide, December’s Affordability Index looked similar to that seen in early 2018. Despite this, December’s median prices actually went up 0.04 percent over November’s numbers (and still up 3.7 percent year over year), and average prices spiked 1.3 percent from prices seen in November (up 5.8 percent from this time last year). As expected for the winter months, days on market continued to trend upward to 57 days and 52 days for single-family homes and townhomes/condos, respectively.
Despite the increase in listings coming onto the market in the later half of 2018, providing buyers with more choices than they’d seen in early 2018 and late 2017, new listings in December took a dive with only 3,868 listings, down 36.5 percent from the 6,095 listings that hit the market in November; though buyers should note that such trending is not unusual during the holiday months and that we may see a resurgence of listings hit the market in 2019 as we edge our way toward the warmer months. Statewide, sold listings followed the same pattern as new listings with a 11.8 percent drop in sold listings over the previous month, down 15.8 percent year over year.
