Housing market sucks right now (Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs: for sale, real estate market, how much)

[shanen]

This is mostly a pity-me party. We are trying to move to the Springs into the downtown area, into an old (pre-1930s home). Apparently people really like it there because there is barely any inventory, and what is out there either is in a "bad" area or way overpriced. Anything decent is gone within a day or two.

Anyone have some cheese to share with my whine?

[otterprods]

Originally Posted by shanen

Apparently people really like it there because there is barely any inventory, and what is out there either is in a "bad" area or way overpriced.

Of course that's what the news, and many other people call 'GOOD NEWS' in the real estate market. I tend to agree with you though even though I do own my permanent home already. I don't intend or even desire to sell, so seeing it go way up in value does me no tangible good and it un-necessarily increases my taxes. Also I don't like seeing people who need homes be unable to get them due to greedy competition. But I guess that's life which is why some will say that you are just having a pity party. I feel your pain though, it's not right.

[Carrera32]

I live in Old North End, a great downtown neighborhood with lots of older homes. I don't know what your budget is, but I just went on ppar.com (the local real estate on-line resource) and found 11 older homes in North End for sale with prices between 305K and 450K. You can find comparable homes with lower prices in the neighborhoods adjacent to North End (i.e., Shooks Run and Patty Jewett). If you're looking on a map, Old North End's boundaries are roughly Monument Valley Park on the West, Van Buren St. on the North, Wahsatch Ave on the East and Uintah/Colorado College on the South. The Patty Jewett neighborhood is adjacent to Old North End on the East and Shooks Run is adjacent to Patty Jewett to the South. In Old North End, Cascade and Nevada Avenues have a fair amount of traffic. Wood Avenue and the side streets are all quiet with little traffic.

That ought to give you enough cheese to get started. Also check out Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs. Housing in Manitou always seems tight; we found nothing there when we were looking three years ago. Check out ppar.com, enter your parameters and hit search. You might be surprised how much is here.

Just remember, there's no whining in Colorado Springs...Oh, wait, I forgot about the mayor and City Council. Oh well, another topic for another day.

[CharlotteRJ]

To the OP... That's why we ended up in Northgate. ONEN was my dream neighborhood, but we couldn't find anything that met our needs anywhere near our price, even being willing to look at fixer uppers.

[esas]

We were just there 2 weeks ago looking for a home, OCC and ONE were our desire….up to $400K and came up blank. Found another great neighborhood - but the inventory sucks and price/sf is unreal right now.

[shanen]

We're focused on the Old North End, Patty Jewett, Divine Redeemer, and Shooks Run neighborhoods. ONE is unlikely, as while the houses are nice, most of them are on very small lots. We had an offer in on a house, but the inspection showed almost $10k in major repairs needed, and the sellers wanted us to cover a large portion. So we are back to square one and are feeling a bit hopeless.

If any of you know of anyone in any of those neighborhoods that is considering selling, we'd love to talk!

[allprolab]

I say at least once a week that we couldn't have purchased our house at a better time. And since I had to fly in for a weekend to try and find something, I feel even more lucky. We also wanted an older house in the downtown general area and ended up in nice little house in a great neighborhood (Shooks Run) and couldn't be happier. I can certainly understand your frustration because we haven't seen any on the market since we bought in the fall of '12 that catches our eye. And our budget was as low as we could get into a decent place and certainly not over 175. Thankfully we weren't forced to go higher just to be able to bid.

Good luck to you and don't give up. You should want to live in an area where housing is hard to find. You might have to settle, but sometimes that's what we have to do.

[lurtsman]

I feel for you. That market is transitioning right now. Prices are high, but not high enough to keep houses on the market for more than few days. Realistically, to even out those prices may have to go up a bit because a house that sells in 24 hours is usually under-priced. That part really hurts because the prices are so high already. However, I'll admit that perhaps if I was a "downtown" kind of person, I might be more used to the pricing in those areas. I'm just not. I'm just so content to live in the suburbs and not hear my neighbors.

[nicola_vera2]

I moved away from Divine Redeemer in February (I rented, and LOVED that neighborhood. I'm now in Texas in cookie-cutter hell), and there were always a lot of houses for sale in the surrounding few blocks when I lived there. Not all built before the 30's though...some 30's, 40's and 50's (mine was on the 900 block of Hancock and built in 1936. Have I mentioned I miss it?)

[folkguitarist555]

Same thing going on in Vancouver WA, N Idaho, Missoula, Reno, Outskirts of Portland OR, and etc...u see one decent priced home on realtor.com, a day later it is under contract and pending...utterly ridiculous, imo. We all can assume where the folks are coming from who buy up these homes in three seconds flat.