Year to date real estate sales in Summit County are down 4% (note that at this same time 2011 sales were up 23% compared to 2010’s). Positive news – our current number of residential listings that are under contract is up just under 3% over last year, so it is possible that after these sales become actual sold listings we will break even with last year’s numbers.
While the county is down in the total number of residential sales so far this year the North Side of the county is up 22%; which is great for the North Side of the county. Unfortunately the South Side is down 30%. This will be another interesting aspect of our local market to follow and gage whether a balancing out will occur or a trend is in the process.
Current inventory of 1187 residential listings with average list price of $729,640 includes 434 single family homes/duplexes, 616 condos and 126 townhomes.
Denver real estate market has certainly been making news recently. Today’s article in The Denver Post talks about it’s robust downtown that will attract the key demographic group — professionals ages 25 to 34 — that is essential to a thriving regional economy.
The subject was discussed this morning at the Downtown Denver Partnership Inc.’s Urban Leadership Symposium, attended by 350 business and civic leaders from throughout the Rocky Mountain region.
“The attractiveness of the west is at the top of almost every young person’s list,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper. “People are coming from every corner of the United States to the west.”
College-educated professionals ages 25 to 34 are 110% more likely to live in close-in neighborhoods than they were in 1980, said Carol Coletta, director of ArtPlace, a collaboration of national foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts to accelerate creative placemaking across the country.
“We can no longer treat urban living as an alternative lifestyle,” Coletta said. “If the city doesn’t work, then the region doesn’t work, and if the region doesn’t work the state doesn’t work. You can’t have a successful city without a successful heart — a successful downtown.”
One of downtown’s biggest boosters, Tami Door of Downtown Denver Partnership, said economic development is more than creating jobs in the heart of the city. “It’s about creating jobs in the region,” Door said. “But it comes back to where employees want to live.”
Among future developments in Downtown Denver are a 242-unit apartment building in Denver’s Riverfront Park neighborhood (planned to be build by a Chicago-based developer); an 18-story tower, which will include street-level retail, to the west of Union Station (planned by Vancouver, Wash.-based Holland Partners); recently announced $60 million apartment project at 17th and Chestnut streets (by Denver developer David Zucker) and a 307-unit apartment project at 20th and Chestnut (by Randy Nichols, he’s talking with King Soopers and Safeway about opening a 43,000-square-foot grocery store in the project).
“One thing we know for sure is that 25- to 35-year-olds nationally are making major movements into urban centers, and they’re desiring to live within 3 miles of an authentic urban city,” said Tami Door, president and chief executive of Downtown Denver Partnership. “Denver’s growth is exponential in attracting that particular age group. There also is a trend that more people are choosing to rent rather than buy. It gives them great freedom.”
Chris Cowan, senior land associate at ARA Colorado, estimates that up to 2,600 apartment units will be delivered in metro Denver next year; about 4,000 in 2013; and up to 6,000 in 2016. But even with all the new projects being built, Cowan expects the apartment market to remain strong. About 4,500 units are absorbed each year, he said. “We’ve had a limited to no pipeline over the last two or three years,” he said.
ARA has recently closed three other land deals that were in the works about a year ago, said Steve O’Dell, ARA Colorado principal and Cowan’s partner in the transaction. He expects to close several more in the first quarter next year.
Late last year a segment on FOX NEWS has indicated that Denver’s real estate market was one of the hottest in the nation to invest in. I think 2012 is going to be great for Denver real estate!
