Local housing market grows tighter
Local housing market grows tighter
| Dennis Darrow | Updated
GOOD
The percent of people who plan on buying a home by age group.
The Pueblo area housing market remains hot — and the supply of available homes continues to shrink.
Building on the gains of the past two years, home sales in Pueblo County jumped again in April, according to the Pueblo Association of Realtors.
Sales were up 12.6 percent by unit volume (241 homes vs. 214 homes) and up 23.2 percent by dollar volume ($43.3 million vs. $35.2 million) from a year earlier, according to the group’s data. The report covers Pueblo, Pueblo West and other parts of the county
Homes priced at $200,000 or more remained in demand with 86 units sold last month compared to 61 units a year earlier. April also saw the sale of five houses valued at $400,000 or more.
Last year, home sales in Pueblo County totaled $426 million, the first year the sales topped the spending prior to the 2007-09 U.S. housing crash and recession, according to estimates.
The rush to buy and sell continues to deplete the available homes for sale, according to a report on the Pueblo County market by the Colorado Association of Realtors.
The area’s inventory of available homes was down to a 1.7-month supply as of April, according to the report. A year earlier, there was a 2.8-month supply.
Other findings for Pueblo County from the report:
The prices for single-family homes continue to climb.
Through the first four months of the year, the median sales price in the Pueblo area was $158,000, up 6 percent from a year earlier. In April, the median price had risen to $177,000, up 18 percent from a year earlier. The prices remain far below the median of other cities such as Denver (about $470,000) and Colorado Springs ($276,500).
Local single-family home sales were up 10.4 percent from January through April compared to the same period in 2016.
The average days on market for a single-family home was 81 days in April, down from 97 days a year earlier. The number of new listings for the month was down to 317 last month from 363 a year ago.
The local townhouse/condo market is even tighter.
The inventory of available townhomes was down to a 1.3-month supply in April and the average selling price for the first four months of the year was up 3.4 percent to $150,151.
Home construction is on the upswing in Pueblo County but, as with many other areas of the state and nation, the pace of building still remains well below the pre-recession level.
From January through April, local builders pulled construction permits on 119 single-family homes, up from 73 during the same period in 2016, according to Pueblo Regional Building Department data.
The thinning supply of available homes has become a statewide problem in Colorado.
“Statewide, active listings are down nearly 37 percent for single-family homes from a year prior, while in the Denver-metro area, active listings are down more than 42 percent year-over-year,” the Colorado Association of Realtors said as part of its April statewide report.
Listings jumped in March but then fell off again in April, the statewide group said.
With The Chieftain for more than 25 years, Business Editor Dennis Darrow is a graduate of University of Southern Colorado/Colorado State University-Pueblo.
This article was published by The Pueblo Chieftain and can be accessed by clicking here.