(Decided to make two posts instead of just one)
Denver real estate market thriving, except for one area
Sep 30, 2020 By: Sean Towle - The Denver Channel
Quote:
DENVER-- Downtown Denver used to be so full of life before the COVID-19 pandemic. “Downtown is kinda silent, and it's kind of a 180 from last year,” Denver High-Rise Living founder Lori Greenly said.
“People are looking for single-family homes and townhomes. They’re moving out of downtown and the condos,” Keller Williams Downtown broker Megan Kemp said. “COVID has really impacted condos in the central business district and people who wanna move downtown,” she said.
Brokers who specialize in condos say it's a trend in the district, not the condo market as a whole. “I’m tracking these price reductions in 80202 right now, because there's some pretty sweet deals,” Greenly said.
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Today's Denverite points out that rental rates are down ~5% from a year ago according to Apartment List.
I see all this as a good thing - for now.
I can recall in previous years speculating on the 'end of the RE cycle.' But with construction going on and on, even accelerating we mostly gave up talking about cycles and their ending.
BG918 would occasionally issue a 'warning.'
Adjustments
With a focus on the downtown market this feels like more of an adjustment, both as to lifestyle preference and affordability. Chances are we see a lull in new downtown construction. But things will settle soon enough and hopefully costs of construction come down. (Not sure about the rising costs of lumber...) Unfortunately, with lots of new suburban construction (country-wide) lumber prices will be hard to predict.
What I'd like to see
Hopefully, we see more developers look to building TOD outside of the city center. Cypress Real Estate Advisors is but one example of wanting to develop urban/suburban product. There's lots of opportunity for suburban TOD.