Boulder-Area Stats: How Did Our Market Fare in 2009?

Posted by Phil Boren on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 5:17pm.

I read an article and heard on TV today that "...foreclosure filings hit a record in 2009" and that more were expected in 2010. Pretty interesting headline and there are some numbers to back it up: According to Realty Trac, there were over 2.8 million homes that faced at least 1 foreclosure filing in 2009. That's not foreclosures, but foreclosure filings; the difference is that not all homes that are initially posted for foreclosure end up being foreclosed. Still, 2.8 million is a big number. As it has been now for several years, there is no shortage of bad news about the national real estate market. I was anxious to research our local market here in Boulder County to see how we fared in 2009 vs. the national trend(s).

In previous posts, we have seen our market cited as being on many "best of" and "Top Ten" lists for real estate, jobs, places to live, places to retire, etc. So has our market really fared any better than the national doom and gloom? First, you have to remember that real estate markets are intensely local and that the national figures include Nevada, California and Florida. These markets are over-the-top in terms of their poor performance, so they drag the overall numbers down.

According to stats I just pulled from IRES, our local MLS system, Boulder County posted some relatively decent numbers in 2009 for single-family and attached resale units: The median price of a sold listing was up 12%, the number of homes sold was up 4%, the number of listings was down 4%, the number of listings under contract was up 14%, and the MSI or months' supply of inventory was down 20%. Individual neighborhoods and certainly price ranges will vary within these stats, but overall these are relatively good results county-wide.

The city of Boulder had similar results in 2009: The median price of a sold listing was up 4%, the number of homes sold was up 6%, the number of listings was up 6%, the number of listings under contract was up 39%, and the MSI or months' supply of inventory was down 31%. Here, there was a marked difference in the performance of listings below and those above $1M, but still decent results overall.

There's not likely to be a real estate market in the country that has been immune to the downturn, but our market here is better than most. If you are interested in more information about Boulder real estate or specific stats for your city or neighborhood, please feel free to contact us.

Phil Boren
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Email: pboren@remax.net
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