The rapidly rising price tags on Longmont homes are certainly no secret. Median house prices increased 15.5 percent in the last year alone.
But perhaps the best measure of the post-recession recovery is this: The average cost of a single-family home in the city has roughly doubled in less than a decade, from $205,454 in the depths of the recession — Nov. 2008 — to $406,762 last month.
That's a 98 percent increase in just over 8 years, roughly 12 percent appreciation per year. The same gains would take 28 years to achieve at more historic levels of appreciation of 3.4 percent, according to the Case-Shiller index.
"It's hard to believe that just a few short years ago, we would sometimes show a house and we would be the only ones in the house that month," said Grant Muller owner/broker of Boulder's Spaces Real Estate. "Now, when a cute place comes on the market, we call our clients to meet us at the property during their lunch break that day or risk losing out."
Those Nov. 2008 and Jan. 2017 prices are, of course, only single-month snapshots. Longmont's year-end average for 2008 was slightly higher at $240,000.
But prices have still climbed 61.5 percent since that low point, in line with other counties in the community.
Boulder's annual low point occurred in 2009 when the average price stood at $647,800. Prices rebounded 65.4 percent to an average of $1.07 million in 2016.
Louisville has gained 62 percent from its 2008, $391,200 low; Lafayette, 56.7 percent from its low of $352,900 in 2009.
The recession did not hit Boulder County as hard as other parts of the country because it wasn't as overbuilt, resulting in (mostly) modest drops in prices.
That has given the area a lot of runway for prices to rise once the recovery took hold.
Nationally, the low point for U.S. home prices was $166,200 in 2011, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Today, it's around $235,000 — a 41.3 percent increase.
"During the housing boom (of the early 2000s), there was price growth that reached close to or above doubling," said Adam DeSanctis, economic issues media manager with NAR. "Now you're starting to see price growth accelerating or reaching that point again."
But, DeSanctis cautioned, that isn't because we're in a bubble.
The recent run-up in prices is being driven almost entirely by low supply, which makes it different from the frenzy that created the housing bubble, and the recession, in the first place.
"Back then, people were buying homes faster then they could earn money," said Kyle Snyder of Longmont's Land Title Guarantee. "This market is built on wealth and not credit."
Longmont is in high demand as first-time buyers flock to the only sub-$400,000 market in Boulder County. But those days as an affordable haven might be over.
Longmont first crossed the $400,000 average threshold in September, and will likely continue to do so throughout 2017, Snyder said.
"There's nothing out there that changes the direction of this market. Interest rates are not going to go up significantly; inventory's going to remain fairly tight.
"It's just going to be an expensive world from now on."
Shay Castle: 303-473-1626, castles@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/shayshinecastle
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