Virus crisis is giving buyers a new way of looking at space, as agents see quick sales of homes with room to spread out
In 2019, Realtor Eva Stadelmaier marked $56 million worth of home sales in Jefferson County. But she’s on track to do even better this year—despite the spring pandemic and resurgent fears of a spike this summer.
“It’s not just an uptick here,” she says, looking out at pretty Ken-caryl Valley where she practices. “It’s picking up all over the Southwest metro area.”
That’s one of many signs that this is turning out as an atypical summer for the market, according to Matt Leprino, spokesperson for the Colorado Association of Realtors, tracking data for CAR.
“It’s absolute pandemonium for buyers under $400,000,” Leprino says. Renters, who endured the stay-at-home in especially tight quarters, came away from the experience vowing ‘I can’t stay in an apartment one more day,’—and are now competing to get under contract for single-family homes.
Kentwood’s Jennifer Markus is seeing a similar effect in upperend neighborhoods southeast of the city of Denver. In the entire area of Greenwood Village, Cherry Hills and Southeast Aurora served by Cherry Creek Schools there are now only 16 properties on the market between $1.5 and $2.5 million; while 37 listings in that range closed over recent weeks or are pending.
In addition to Denver city buyers, purchasers include an inordinate number of out-of towners, Markus notes.
“The high end is being driven by demand to get out of big urban hotspots,” she adds—mentioning Chicago and New York/ New Jersey as points of origin, along with the Bay Area and L.A.
Boulder County
Forty miles north, in Boulder County, Mcstain Neighborhoods is tracking brisk sales of its attractive new homes right through the pandemic, centered in the $750s at Longmont’s West Grange; in the $850s further east at Lost Creek Farm in Erie.
“It’s been gangbusters,” says Danielle Davis, Mcstain’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
“We’re doing better than expected because people are upsizing, getting out of apartments, wanting more space.” Many buyers, she adds, had considered a move for some time, but were pushed over the edge by the pandemic.
“People are finding it a lot easier to work from home, and companies are showing more flexibility,” adds Stadelmaier, with Re/max Professionals, following a sale of a home in North Ranch last weekend, on the market just two days, that sold full price to a Midwest buyer at $1.395 million.
“People need space for two parents to work from home,” she adds. “It’s very important to have land, open space, and a view. People are looking for that.”
“We haven’t seen much of a decline yet from the pandemic; it averages back to a fairly normal market,” says CAR’S Leprino.
He notes, however, that the market hasn’t registered potential negatives of job losses, held in abeyance for now as Fannie and Freddie extend forbearance of foreclosure filings.