REAL ESTATE INSIDER Vol. 47, No. 7 | JULY 2023

WHY THE LOCAL HOUSING MARKET REMAINS A WORLD TO ITSELF

How do you make sense of Northern Colorado’s housing market?

One house at a time.

For buyers who believed this year’s mortgage rates would suppress demand and drive down prices, that depends on the house. If you find a turnkey property in a popular neighborhood, it’s still likely you’ll compete with multiple bidders.

For sellers who read the headlines about stabilizing mortgage rates, and thus assume they can ask for top dollar, that also depends on the house. If your property isn’t well-staged, or you set the list price too high, you could find yourself waiting for offers.

One factor influencing Northern Colorado buyers and sellers is the ongoing story of a slender inventory.

It’s well documented that many homeowners who bought their home with a mortgage rate in the vicinity of 3 percent don’t want to move unless they find the home of their dreams. Consequently, people who might have otherwise put their homes up for sale are staying put. That keeps supply low and makes competition stiff for attractive homes, just as the spring-summer buying season is starting to bloom.

A more subtle influence on inventory is the availability of water – necessary before developers and homebuilders can start construction on much-needed new homes. For example, a recent attempt to establish a 2,000-home development on a 350-acre lot in Weld County hit a roadblock when the local water district could not commit to supplying the necessary water taps. Instead of an infusion of new homes, the developer is dividing the land into 35-acre lots for just nine high end estates.

Nearly a year after mortgage rates surged beyond the 6 percent threshold, and doom-and-gloom news accounts started banging the drum about a pending national housing crash, the local market keeps marching on. While demand is down since the spring of 2022, it hasn’t dried up. The fact that Northern Colorado remains a highly desirable place to live keeps would-be homebuyers on the lookout in Larimer and Weld counties.

With the opposing influences of low inventory and steady demand, the Northern Colorado housing market is not about to fit neatly into any national narrative about real estate.

As your trusted advisor, please call me if you’d like some guidance to navigate the nuances of your current market.

Earlier this year, we asked planning departments in several Northern Colorado communities about development trends and local priorities. In the fourth of a series, we feature responses from Greeley Interim Community Development Director Don Threewitt, AICP. His comments were edited for length and clarity.

GREELEY: FUTURE-FOCUSED, FAST-GROWING CITY

What are your city’s current priorities or focus areas of impact?

City Manager Raymond Lee called 2023 a ‘Year of Planning,’ which includes focusing on these:

1. Community Development: Revitalizing downtown, doing a deep dive on housing needs, beautifying entry ways, improving metro districts, neighborhood services, design strategies, kicking off a redevelopment program for challenged properties in 2024 and historic preservation to build each of these program areas.
2. Public Works: New, progressive Transportation Master Plan.
3. Department of Housing Initiatives: Housing issues, especially helping those experiencing homelessness.
4. Parks Master Plan and Trails Master Plan: Laying groundwork for long-term goal for everyone to live within a 10-minute walk to nature.

What are your projects of note?

We have several large, mixed-use developments downtown. The Hope Springs 475-unit Habitat for Humanity affordable housing development (the largest in Colorado), two 200+ unit single-family rental neighborhoods, and several large mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods are in the planning phases, Greeley has city-defining park projects and transportation projects that could demonstrate radical improvements to how cities align affordability with livability.

Discuss the current role of water and how that becomes a future challenge or opportunity?

The City of Greeley is proud to have a long history of water stewardship in Northern Colorado. Since 1907, we’ve provided safe, high-quality water supplies for our residents while ensuring a reliable supply for the future. Greeley views its ample water holdings as one of our bigger strengths, and an opportunity to accommodate anticipated growth well into the future. To ensure this, Greeley has implemented some of the most robust water conservation programs in Colorado, such as Commercial Water Conservation, Life after Lawn, as well as rebate and audit programs.

How has residential development changed?

Greeley is one of the more-affordable cities in Northern Colorado and aims to provide attainable housing opportunities for all.

1. The city’s population has steadily grown 1.81% per year and shows signs of accelerating.
2. 2022 began with an estimate of building 768 housing units and finished the year with 2,070 units – 2.7 times the original estimate!
3. Significant increase in multi-family housing, which accounted for 84% of new units in 2022, aligned with Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland, and Windsor.
4. Housing models becoming more prominent include build-to-rent single-family, co-housing, and multi-generational housing.
5. Opportunities include new Development Code options such as micro-housing or tiny homes, missing-middle housing by-right, and alternative compliance tools such as parking reductions or alternative landscaping, which introduces flexibility in development standards where appropriate and where it will achieve a demonstrated housing need.

Any final thoughts you would like to share from the perspective of your city?

Greeley’s robust nightlife, extensive employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, excellent schools and colleges, progressive policies, established (and growing) arts and creatives scene, and attainable housing have this city poised to be an even faster-growing, destination city.