It's great to see Colorado among the few states that still gets some positive press in real estate reports these days! Denver, which is just 30 minutes from my office in Boulder, Colorado, was recently spotlighted in a Yahoo! News article as the No. 1 big city where Americans would prefer to live. A new survey by the Pew Research Center showed that when Americans were asked which big city would be their choice city to call home, Denver garnered 43% of the votes followed by San Diego and Seattle.Boulder, with a population of just over 100,000, of course didn't make the 'big city' list. But that is precisely what's makes living in Boulder so great. Those who choose to live in Boulder have the very best that a mid-sized, urban college town could ever offer yet just a short 25-mile trek down Hwy 36 and suddenly the city lights of Denver (America's favorite city) come into view. It's truly the best of both worlds.
I also noticed this week that Longmont, located just 16 miles northeast of Boulder, was ranked by AOL Real Estate as the nation's #7 town for 'best education bargains", meaning the quality of its educational system is very high while its housing market is still quite affordable. Longmont, home to major employers like Amgen and Seagate, has always been much more affordable than Boulder but its outskirts are dotted with some of Boulder County's finest high-end residential pockets and equestrian estates.
Still, the difference in median home price between Boulder and Longmont is quite astonishing, and while Longmont's home prices are fairly stagnant, Boulder's continue to climb. This chart show each city's media home price trend over the last 180 days (Boulder is the black line, Longmont is the orange line):
1 comment:
I agree that now is an opportune time to purchase real estate in Boulder, Colorado. As principal of Architectural Manoeuvres, PC in Boulder, I am seeing a diminishing supply of quality vacant lots for new construction and affordable residential building sites for remodels and additions. This situation has been brought to life by the quality of life in Boulder and the ring of open space land that rings the town and provides a limit to the amount of development allowed. The city of Boulder has instituted the Green Points building code that is designed to make new construction, remodels and renovations more energy efficient. This program has worked well so far, but has added additional cost to the construction component of a new or remodeled building project. The city is also currently working its way through an ordinance that will limit the size of new homes, remodels and additions. The ultimate size of the project will be linked to the building lot's underlying zoning and size of its surrounding neighbors. The county of Boulder has added the even more stringent BuildSmart energy code. This program is apparently one of the toughest energy codes in the nation, linking building size to energy efficiency. Any home in the county exceeding a certain square footage benchmark is required to be a net-zero energy home. For the above reasons, the valuation of existing residential homes will continue to increase in the future.
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