Coloradans carrying considerable debt

Colorado has the lowest obesity rate of any state, but when it comes to financial fitness, residents of the Centennial State borrowed money at an unrivaled pace last year, contributing to one of the heaviest debt burdens in the country.

Nationally, the per capita debt burden runs $50,090, according to analysis from HowMuch.net, which looked at numbers from Credit Karma and the Federal Reserve Bank.

But in Colorado, the per capita debt burden is at $71,340, just behind California at $71,860. The leader nationally is the District of Columbia at $86,730, followed by Hawaii at $72,590.

Mortgages constitute the lion’s share of personal debt, followed by student loans, auto loans and personal loans.

Colorado ranked fifth among all states with an average mortgage balance of $253,202 in 2018, and tied with Texas for the fastest growth rate in mortgage balances at 3.6 percent, according to the credit rating agency Experian.

Rising mortgage debt has followed a spike in home prices this decade, especially along the Front Range. The desperation to get into a home may also explain why Colorado residents borrowed money at a pace unmatched anywhere else.

The average debt individual borrowers added last year was $3,536 in Colorado between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the fourth quarter of 2017, according to Experian. That’s four times the average gain of $871 across all states during the same period.

As recessionary concerns mount, consumers decreased debt in a handful of states, including New York, New Jersey, Maine, Maryland, Vermont and Oklahoma. Colorado borrowers, along with those in Utah, Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts, went strongly in the opposite direction.

Overall consumer debt in the U.S. hit $13.3 trillion at the end of last year, with several categories reaching record highs, according to Experian. They included residential mortgage debt at $9.4 trillion, student loans at $1.37 trillion and auto loans at $1.23 trillion.

Personal loan debt, which reached $291 billion, was the fastest-growing loan category nationally.