2021 Colorado Real Estate In Review

by Wes Strange | Feb 3, 2022 | 2021, Home Prices, Inventory, Real Estate, Statistics

2021 Colorado Real Estate In Review

Curious to know how 2021 faired for the housing market in Colorado? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

– 2/3 of Coloradans owned and occupied a home by the end of 2021

– Only 2% of the homes on the market were vacant, with most homeowners needing to sell their current home before making a move

– Roughly 4% of all rental homes are vacant

– 2.25 million homes were occupied during 2021 with 1.5 million of those being owner occupied and 750,000 of those being rentals

– Over $10 Million worth of new building permits were issued

– Approximately 650 manufactured homes were created or shipped to Colorado

– The average home price increased by 18% overall, the biggest increase since 2000, which finished at 15%

– Average home price in the Denver Metro area finished at $615,000

– We finished up the year with just over 11,000 homes on the market, with approximately 8000 of those pending a sale, and 3000 of those waiting for an interested buyer

– Denver was the 5th hottest real estate market in the nation

– Average days on market was down to a record 20 days

DiY Home Remodeling Is On The Rise Amidst A WAve Of Increased Costs On Building Supplies

by Wes Strange | Feb 3, 2022 | DIY, Home Remodeling, Real Estate

DiY Home Remodeling Is On The Rise Amidst A Wave Of Increased Costs On Building Supplies

2022 has just started and already we are seeing a trend of rapidly increasing DiY remodeling. When faced with the competitive housing market, bidding wars, and the increasing cost of bulding supplies, many buyers are concerned with buying homes in need of remodeling and updating. With many people working from home, social media use is at an all time high. Social Media influencers are showing that remodeling on a budget without sacrificing quality is very much a possibility.

With a little bit of research and many helpful tips to be discovered, many home owners are making a big impact on their old outdated designs, without a big impact on their pocketbooks. Among these tips are low to no-cost improvements ranging from increasing the natural lighting of rooms, lighter paint colors to expand to open a room up, removing carpet to reveal original wood floors, refinishing wood floors by hand, and refinishing thrift store items for a whole new aesthetic. Minor tweaks like furniture arrangement can make a huge difference on potential buyers looking to purchase your current home, focusing more on design rather than functionality. Low cost Ikea furniture can be custom finished creating a one of a kind piece. Many DiY’ers are turning to community apps such as Next Door or Facebook Marketplace to sell old furniture and finishes rather than deal with the pain and frustration that can be a garage sale. Both of these options are also great places to score free unwanted building materials just waiting to be reutilized. Other destinations such as Reddit contain many sub-communities, or sub-reddits, where like minded people can gather to share their creations, help others create them for themselves, and even obtain advice on a particular space within their homes. Custom self-created artwork is another excellent example of how to update a room, forgoing outdated and tacky store bought items with something a little more personal and meaningful.

With so many places to look for inspiration to rennovate and remodel your new place, or even your existing one, theres little reason to worry about buying a fixer-up’er if it fullfills your dream of home ownership. With the right real estate team, you can even save money on your purchase, even in this market, and put those savings to good use. 2022 is set to be a big year in DIY, and the year is only getting started.

What Do Interest Rate Hikes And Ever-Increasing Home Prices Mean For You?

by Wes Strange | Feb 2, 2022 | Home Prices, Interest Rates, Real Estate

How Will Interest Rate Hikes and Ever-Increasing Home Prices Affect You?

With the Federal Reserve announcing they plan to increase interest rates this spring, as well as no end in sight for increasing housing prices, what does this mean for those looking to buy in 2022?

In 2021, the average home price in the Denver Metro area increased by almost 18%, bringing home prices to an absolute high. 2022 is expected to continue that price increase, however, not by nearly the numbers we saw last year. Experts estimate that by the end of 2022, housing prices will have increased by approximately 8% signaling a large slowdown and a more level playing ground between supply and demand. Still this is no small comfort to those looking to purchase this year, especially when compounded with the announcement that the Federal Reserve will be increasing interest rates. We still don’t know the full plan set in place by the Fed, however many experts believe the rates will increase several times this year, but remain below a 1% overall increase, protentially bringing rates from 3.4% now to around 4.25%. This may mark the first time since 2019 that rates have surpassed the 4% mark, and quite a difference compared to our all time low of 2.65% in January of 2021.

So, what does this mean for people looking to buy in 2022? For current home owners, not much. The increase in home prices will offset the interest rate change, especially for those looking to downsize or those capable of putting large downpayments on their new purchase. For first time home buyers, this is likely to impact what and where they can afford to purchase, however with more new home construction than ever, this year is likely to be much less of a biding war on offers, allowing a little more flexibility on buying power. The good news for first time home buyers, is there is light at the end of the tunnel, as a more level playing field between supply and demand is just on the horizon.

Don’t think you can afford a home in this market? Reach out to The Strange Team today and we can show you how you can make the jump with confidence and security.

New Home Construction Is Still On The Rise

by Wes Strange | Feb 2, 2022 | New Home Construction, Real Estate

New Home Construction Is Still On The Rise

The new home construction market is still going strong after showing its first dip this January since the last 10 months. Data from 2021 shows that a record 1,700,000 homes broke ground on construction to help with the nations inventory problem. The single-family home market is not the only one on the rise. In November there were a reported 525,000 new multi-family housing developments in production.

New home construction was reliably stable throughout all of 2021, even with the strain on building materials and the nations supply line, providing an increase in overall new homes by over 15% from 2020 nationwide, and aproximately 10% in Colorado alone, helping ot make Denver the 5th hottest real estate market overall. While this increase in supply has been a boon for many home buyers, especially for those unable to compete in bidding wars on existing homes, we still have a long way to go to bring inventory up to the level of demand.

So, what is in store for new homes in 2022? In December 2021, almost 1.9 million permits had been issued for new construction showing that 2022 will continue the trend of the previous year. Many experts agree that construction may not continue at the same record breaking rate that we saw during 2021, however they also agree that it is not likely to change by much. Supply lines, building materials, and a lack of skilled labor will continue to cause issues regarding speed of construction. In the long run it looks like 2022 is shaping up to be another record year helping to bridge the gap between suply and demand.