By Shay Castle
Staff writer Denver Post
Staff writer Denver Post
POSTED: 08/25/2015 05:53:33 PM MDT3 COMMENTS| UPDATED: A DAY AGO
The exterior of a home for sale at 140 East St. Clair Avenue is seen on Tuesday. The home is listed at $209,000 and is currently under contract. The
The exterior of a home for sale at 140 East St. Clair Avenue is seen on Tuesday. The home is listed at $209,000 and is currently under contract. The inventory of homes for sale under $250,000 in the Longmont area is very low. (Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer)
Sales and inventory of single-family homes priced below $250,000 are at an all-time low in Boulder County, according to a new report by Land Title Guarantee Company.
The exterior of a home for sale at 140 East St. Clair Avenue is seen on Tuesday. The home is listed at $209,000 and is currently under contract. The inventory of homes for sale under $250,000 in the Longmont area is very low. (Matthew Jonas / Staff Photographer)
Sales and inventory of single-family homes priced below $250,000 are at an all-time low in Boulder County, according to a new report by Land Title Guarantee Company.
Just 199 homes sold below that price in the first seven months of 2015, and there are only 10 current listings for single-family homes under $250,000 — a mere fraction of the total market.
Affordable condos, too, are few and far between. Only 63 units sold for $150,000 or less so far this year, and there are two active listings on the market.
"Inventory is the lowest that it's ever been," said Amy Aschenbrenner, CEO of Longmont Association of Realtors, who provided the sales data for the report.
The one bright spot of availability is in Longmont, where about 23 percent of the city's market is affordable.
From Jan. 1 to July 31 of this year, 176 single-family homes sold for less than $250,000, dwarfing the 23 similar sales in the rest of the county. Twenty-six of the 63 affordable attached dwelling units were also sold in Longmont.
The city's inventory of single-family homes is also the highest in the county, at 7 percent. No other Boulder County municipality has an active listing of a sub-$250,000 home, save for Erie, which has one.
"The bottom line to me is that it's not just the average price of a home that determines the affordability of an area. It's the availability of affordable homes," said Kyle Snyder, a sales manager at Land Guarantee Title. "And Longmont has the highest availability in the region. By far."
In Boulder, two single-family homes under $250,000 were sold — both deed restricted, permanently affordable properties. Eight of the 29 affordable condo sales were also permanently affordable units.
In Louisville and Superior, no single-family homes sold in that price range, and none are currently for sale. Five Lafayette homes sold for $250,000 or less, and Erie saw 16 such sales.
The two active attached dwellings listed at less than $150,000 are in Boulder and Louisville.
The benchmark of affordability for the report is set at 82 percent of the average home price in Longmont, which was $335,406 for the first six months of 2015. For attached dwellings, the affordability limit is 71 percent of average sales price.
Aschenbrenner said a major factor is how fast houses are selling, keeping would-be sellers in place longer as they struggle to find a replacement home.
"You're not going to put your starter home on the market before you find a replacement home because homes are moving so quickly," she said. "We happen to be in a area that is very desirable to live in."
Snyder said inventory might increase a bit over the winter months, as it historically does, but he doesn't see any real changes on the horizon.
"I have a feeling that demand is going to continue to be stronger than the end of last year," he said. "It's all part of the new normal."
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