Are Happy Days Here Again in Colorado Springs?
I love that song from the Depression era, Happy Days Are Here Again. I think it was written in 1929, and to be honest, was sung quite a few times by quite a few people before it really had any truth to it. My question is, are we singing the song before it is true here?
There are a lot of great things happening in the Colorado Springs real estate market that indicate that happy days really are here again. A quick summary:
- Sales for May were up 20.3% over last year
- Prices are up. The median was up 2.6%, the average up 7.2%
- The inventory of unsold homes is holding pretty steady, and while it rose 1.1% over last year, at the current sales rate, that is down to a 3.3 month supply
- In May we sold more homes than we did in May of 2007, or any other May in between then and now.
- New construction is continuing to rise
- Unemployment has fallen to 8.1%, and while this seems high, it is considerably lower than a year ago, and even since last month
- Prices have risen 15 consecutive months
So why can’t we just belt it out? Well, there are still some issues.
- The average price peaked at $276,148 in June of 2007. May’s average of $249,925 is still off that peak by 9.5%
- The median price peaked at $227,000 in July of 2007. May’s median of $215,500 was off that peak by 5.1%
- Sequestration is still rippling through our local economy, with more budget cuts potentially affecting our 5 local military bases
- Interest rates just jumped this week. Admittedly, from the low 3’s to upper 3’s, it may not take a big bite, but low interest rates have helped fuel what progress we’ve been making
- Unemployment of 8.1%, while a great improvement, is not acceptable. (OBTW, when Franklin Roosevelt played Happy Days are Here Again at the Democratic Convention in 1932, unemployment was 23.6%)
So while we might be really belting it out yet, a few of us are at least beginning to humm 🙂