Colorado Springs Home prices (Cortez: rentals, townhome, employment)

[DoodlemomCoS]

Originally Posted by smdensbcs

Gonna read some tea-leaves here. Is your neighborhood a new or newish-build developer-driven type-place, maybe in D-20, with a high-ish percentage of recent transplants, many of whom are 35-55 who brought their jobs with them from another place, many of the rest being officer-level or retired military (but still under 55) or work for one of the large evangelical non-profits. Mostly big-building mega-church options? That somewhat stereotypically describes the Northern and Northeastern quadrants of the city.


In the "rest" of COS, there's a smattering of telecommuters but a much larger percentage of small-business owners, entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals (doctors/accountants/lawyers/etc) who can make a very good living here (as opposed to a small mountain town or somewhere out on the eastern plains) because the overall ECONOMY is fairly healthy even if there are not large corporations with thousands of jobs here. The "rest" of COS the churches tend to be smaller and denominational and led by someone boring but typically decent (as opposed to mega and non-denominational and led by a charismatic personality).


In my neighborhood near Bear-Creek Park (Southwest part of town), the houses are 50ish years old and my neighbors are mostly HIGHLY educated self-employed professionals with school-age kids, with only a small smattering of tele-commuters. Some military and retired-military but not one person who works for a huge evangelical non-profit.


It's basically a tale of two cities. One north and east with "certain" demographics and one west and south with "other" demographics. Not all that unusual for a city but it seems pretty stark in COS, for sure. I think we all get along pretty OK though.

My neighborhood is in D20 but mostly built in the 1980's. We are talking about jobs that pay $150k and up. Mainly technical in nature. Just don't know how plentiful those are around here with the type of benefits some of these folks get in addition to pay. But maybe they are plentiful here and we just don't know about them.

And I'm talking about HIGHLY educated folks too. I'm talking about folks with Master's or PhD's in engineering or physics. My husband had a master's in engineering from MIT so we aren't talking random lower level office jobs here. Please don't broad brush me. We are surrounded by things you mentioned outside of our immediate neighborhood yes, but not in our specific neighborhood which was developed in the 80's.

And I do agree, many folks on the NE side would probably turn their noses up at our neighborhood. .5-1 acre lots, no HOA and houses all built between 1975-1990. We are a hodgepodge. We would love it it if hubby could find a comparable job here with excellent benefits and insurance and equivalent salary.

[Vision67]

Second verse, same as the first: Colorado Springs home sales, prices rise again | Colorado Springs Gazette, News

"Homes were gobbled up quickly in March, selling in an average of 36 days. In the same month last year, homes spent an average of 47 days on the market before selling."

"The median price - or mid-point - for homes sold in March was $268,000, beating the previous record of $265,000 set in August 2016 and matched in January of this year, according to the Realtors Association. March's median price also was up almost 12 percent from the same month last year. Median prices now have risen for 28 straight months on a year-over-year basis.

- The average sales price in March was $295,828, a 10.4 percent increase over last year, although short of February's record of $301,385. When looking at median and average prices, economists and real estate experts tend to focus more on the median because averages can be skewed by a few very high or very low sale prices.

- The supply of homes remained very tight. There were 1,454 homes listed for sale in March, down one-quarter from the same month last year."

If you list your house, make sure you have another place lined up for a fast move. Houses in my area seem to sell in just a few days.

[Kathy884]

We're thinking about retiring in the area and coming out to visit in July. Actually DH would retire at 66 (two years off) and I could telecommute. DS 21 would move with us too.

Anyway, to get a feel for the real estate market I've been looking at listing on Realtor.com and Zillow.com (different information -- usually the listings are on both sites) to see if there are any homes that look like they could work for us in that $300,000 to $400,000 price range. I've been looking since mid January and to date have seen six listings that looked pretty good to me that I liked, at least on paper. With all the automated tools, I have some searches setup and sites giving me daily updates of new listing, etc. Three out of the six properties have sold and the other three are pending sale (two just got contracts on them this week.) The one of the three sold for over asking price. The other two sold for about 5K to 7K less than asking price. These homes have covered the 90817, 90818, 90819, and 90820 zip codes. Not that this is necessarily a reliable resource or anything (I'm just a lay person looking online), but Zillow sent me reports that the 90817 market was very hot right now (seller's market) and sent me reports that the 90818 and 90820 markets were considered to be medium markets (not a buyers or sellers market).

I've been happy to see that there have been some homes that I liked the look of that were in our price range. I am finding, though, that in general to get amenities that I want (updated, open floor plan, fireplace, nice finished basement, decent kitchen) most of the home have greater square footage than I really would prefer and more bedrooms and bathrooms than I would really prefer (e.g. we'd end up using a bedroom or two as storage area (four or five bedrooms instead of three and three or four bathrooms instead of two, etc.). It just seems that the general size of the homes in on the market are that size, so it looks like some of the savings that I would have for lower property taxes compared to where I live would be spent on greater cleaning costs to clean those extra bedrooms and bathrooms that I really don't want. Maybe I should lower my price range and see if I see anything nice that is smaller??

[otowi]

Yes, lower your price bracket a bit - extend the lower end down to 225 and see what comes up. If too many, you can raise that to fine tune. You can afford a $400,000 house but what costs $400,000 here may be more than you need/want. Plus, having a smaller mortgage is always a good thing!

[MsMetal]

Just to clarify, those zip codes are 809, not 908 (which is near Beverly Hills, CA). You should have no problem in that price range, but they do go fairly fast now, as you've seen. The reason you're finding larger homes than you may want is that those zip codes you mentioned are where most of the new construction has been concentrated over the last 15-20 years, esp 80920, but all of them. I don't think you need to lower your price range so much, as you need to expand your search to older neighborhoods, if you'd like a smaller house. The new construction is all pretty cookie cutter (I say that having owned 2 new construction homes in 80920 & 80908), in that they are going to have those newer layouts, but be larger. If you look at the Old North End or more central COS, you will find smaller homes & some of those may have been renovated to have the modern features you like.

IDK where you live now, but my taxes when we moved here from Mpls, 16 yrs ago, went from $6K/year to $1200/year. So, you can buy a LOT of maid service with the size of that difference. The houses were both essentially the same size.

[Trump_Fan1]

Home prices in Co. Springs are ridiculous. Some are bidding up $10k to 20K above listing price.

You sure don't get much for $200k in Co. Springs. Very sub-par homes compared to the South.

My girlfriend wants to move back there, she thinks Co. Springs is the best thing since sliced bread for some reason, but I'm thinking we'll rent. This is a big-time seller's market.

I also consider about HALF the city off-limits -- I mean, half the city I would not even CONSIDER moving to, mostly the south end, south east, east, central. No way. Seems to be where everything is for sale, too. A lot of these areas just look like crap, suburban sprawl, also the south areas are more crime-infested.

[Vision67]

Originally Posted by Trump_Fan1

Home prices in Co. Springs are ridiculous. Some are bidding up $10k to 20K above listing price.

You sure don't get much for $200k in Co. Springs. Very sub-par homes compared to the South.

When you move from an area that offers lower cost houses to an area that is much more expensive, it's hard to swallow that difference.

I remember my first visit to San Jose, CA on a business trip in 1978. At that time, new houses in Colorado Springs were about $30K on a quarter acre lot. In San Jose, a similar new house on just one tenth of an acre was $67K. I thought that was outrageous!

I thought that the California house was way overpriced and that it would surely drop. Too bad that I was so ignorant!

That California house is now well over $1M. The COS house is about $275K.

You are correct. Now, for $200K you don't get much here. Perhaps it would make more sense for you to stay in the South.

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by Trump_Fan1

Home prices in Co. Springs are ridiculous. Some are bidding up $10k to 20K above listing price.

You sure don't get much for $200k in Co. Springs. Very sub-par homes compared to the South.

My girlfriend wants to move back there, she thinks Co. Springs is the best thing since sliced bread for some reason, but I'm thinking we'll rent. This is a big-time seller's market.

I also consider about HALF the city off-limits -- I mean, half the city I would not even CONSIDER moving to, mostly the south end, south east, east, central. No way. Seems to be where everything is for sale, too. A lot of these areas just look like crap, suburban sprawl, also the south areas are more crime-infested.

You have just encountered the Colorado price premium. You now know the price tag of admission for a mountain view, low humidity, lots of sun, active lifestyle at altitude.

1100 people a month are moving to Cos. Rental vacancy is at 1%. Building starts are NOT at an all time high and construction is one of the lower tier employment sectors. This is a perfect recipe for a run up in prices.

Maybe look into Kansas were prices are falling. Then you are only a days drive away from vacationing in Colorado.

[DrDog]

Originally Posted by Vision67

When you move from an area that offers lower cost houses to an area that is much more expensive, it's hard to swallow that difference.

I remember my first visit to San Jose, CA on a business trip in 1978. At that time, new houses in Colorado Springs were about $30K on a quarter acre lot. In San Jose, a similar new house on just one tenth of an acre was $67K. I thought that was outrageous!

I thought that the California house was way overpriced and that it would surely drop. Too bad that I was so ignorant!

That California house is now well over $1M. The COS house is about $275K.

You are correct. Now, for $200K you don't get much here. Perhaps it would make more sense for you to stay in the South.

Interesting, my parents house in the Bay Area in 1978 was $400k. You shoulda bought that san Jose house.

[DrDog]

Originally Posted by TCHP

You have just encountered the Colorado price premium. You now know the price tag of admission for a mountain view, low humidity, lots of sun, active lifestyle at altitude.

1100 people a month are moving to Cos. Rental vacancy is at 1%. Building starts are NOT at an all time high and construction is one of the lower tier employment sectors. This is a perfect recipe for a run up in prices.

Maybe look into Kansas were prices are falling. Then you are only a days drive away from vacationing in Colorado.

Exactly. Supply and demand. Homes are Cheap where people don't want to live, and expensive where they do. For the square footage, COS homes are not horribly expensive.