Life is filled with good news and bad news. Front Range real estate at the end of 2019 has some of that push-pull, but our main problem is embarrassing good fortune. Our overall economy is still the national leader in IT-led health, jobs, and incomes attracting new residents. So try to keep a straight face.
One year ago mortgage rates crested 5.25 percent, but today are lower by more than one percentage point. Late this summer rates were even lower than now, the August drop caused by fear of global trade war. That fear has abated: trade deals may be small and incremental, but the world has proven much more resilient to tariffs than seemed possible in summer, and trade disagreements are not worsening. Bad economic news pushes down on interest rates, and we’ve run out of bad news.
Our local overload of good news continues to create one difficulty: our shortage of housing. Better said, our shortage of land west of I-25 limits new construction. We are subdividing prairie east of I-25 and clear out to DIA as fast as we can. However, the bigger the Metro footprint, the more awkward for two-income families when the jobs are far apart. But we do have jobs for both partners.
We will create more attached housing, among other places rezoning retail spaces which the internet has replaced. But that takes time. Meanwhile rising rents and a shortage of condos have had one surprising effect: the number of
households earning more than $100,000 and renting has doubled in ten years. The good news: making one hundred grand.
Goldilocks and all three bears never had it so good.