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Ask Renee | Buying · 5 min read

Is now a good time to buy in Colorado?

By Renee Ziegler · Colorado Legacy Home Team

I get this question in the first ten minutes of almost every call, and the honest answer is: it depends on how long you plan to stay, not on what the market is doing this month.

Here’s the math I walk clients through. Buying and selling a home costs real money: closing costs, moving, the inevitable list of things you fix in the first year. If you’re going to be in the house three years or less, timing matters enormously and you should think hard about renting first. If you’re going to be there seven years or more, the month you buy in barely registers on the graph. Most of the people moving to Colorado are in the second group. They’re moving for a job, a family, a life change. Not a flip.

The second thing that matters is your payment, not the price. A house that felt out of reach at one rate can be very comfortable at another, and the reverse is also true. Before you fall in love with a neighborhood, get a real pre-approval and look at the number at the bottom of the page. That number, not the list price, is what you’re actually deciding about.

The third is inventory in your specific band. Colorado isn’t one market. In the same week, one price point in Highlands Ranch can be drawing five offers while a nearly identical house two price bands up sits for forty days. Averages published for “Denver” tell you almost nothing about the house you want. What matters is: how many homes matching your criteria came on in the last 30 days, and how many sold?

What I don’t do is tell you to hurry. If the numbers say wait, I’ll say wait. I’d rather have the referral in three years than the commission today. But if you’re relocating on a timeline and you’ve found the right house in the right neighborhood at a payment that works, waiting for a perfect market is usually just an expensive way to stay in a hotel.

If you want the honest read on your own price band and neighborhood, send me a message and I’ll pull the actual numbers instead of the headlines.