Just like the rest of the country Evergreen, CO is feeling the pressure of low inventory. The new listings in the the Denver Foothills have not started to hit the market. The number of active listings in the Denver Foothills is about 10% of what was actively listed July 2011. In July of 2011 we had 1291 active listings and today we have only 146 active listings in Evergreen, Conifer and Bailey combined. What is surprising is that even with the lack of inventory we are not seeing complete control by the sellers. It is a seller's market but buyers are being smart. We saw some crazy behavior by buyers last summer. It was the same sort of thing you see with a tech IPO on the stock market. There were buyers that felt as if they needed to buy right that moment.
With the spring coming up and the anticipation of more listings the Realtors in Evergreen and the Denver Foothills are feeling confident that we will see a bit of a shift in the market. Most Realtors don't believe we will be seeing a buyers market coming in the near future but they do see the market leveling off a bit. It is hard for any market to sustain the appreciation at the rate the Denver Foothills has seen over the last 5 or so years.
To help combat the housing shortage in the Evergreen area the county is beginning to approve more building. There is one proposal in particular that is 400 proposed units, a development on Floyd Hill just off I 70. There is a need in Jefferson County to add more units. When an area has such low inventory including rentals, it is up to the county to add more homes.
When the market has low inventory and in return low sales it really doesn't help anyone. There are countless buyers that have just thrown their hands up and gave up. This makes it hard to really get a true sampling of the market to determine value. This doesn't always indicate a bubble but when you only have a few comparables to base value on one might need to consider we aren't getting enough sales to sustain the value. Any appraiser can tell you that one or two people do not represent the entire market. If one person could be considered the market then every home would appraise. Meaning that the offer that one person makes on a property is good enough to justify the offer price. Real estate needs to have people saying "yes homes in that area are definitely worth that much". The more homes that sell in that area support and confirm a value in the market.
Comments(2)