Renting or buying in Denver?

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by himain

^^^ I hear what you guys are saying regarding the market. However, our apartment rent kept going up. This last time was going to be going up by $300 a month due to a remodel of the apartment. We rented for 5 years and spent 100k on rent. All we got back was a pet deposit for $400.

We pulled the trigger on buying a house in January. It just made sense for us

Rent going up in Covid times? The nerve I swear.

[lem316]

I have a coworker who just got her renewal lease offer and her rent went down - 80123 ZIP Code

Second, my hunch is that suburban real estate will perform better than it did in comparison to urban real estate this time around due to how COVID has impacted social perception of being/living in dense areas.

We are attempting to buy in Highlands Ranch, and anything under 550k that is priced accurately is still getting eaten up in a day or 2.

I do feel confident that even a well-located 3rd ring suburb like HR will see a better increase in value than both exurban and urban areas as we continue to see Castle Rock and Parker build out, on top of all of the exurb developments --the amount of houses being built off of Titan road may impact desirability of Castle Rock if traffic on Santa Fe continues to worsen, which it will.

But the market prediction is just speculatory and I will be interested to see what happens in 5 years.

[himain]

Originally Posted by Gaylord_Focker

Rent going up in Covid times? The nerve I swear.

Whole complex getting remodeled. No choice so either pay or bye!

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by himain

Whole complex getting remodeled. No choice so either pay or bye!

I sympathize. Finally buying a house. I can't even think of all of the money I've spent on rent over the years.

[Phil P]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

The Cherry Creek Chronicle is always very anti-development. While this doesn’t meant that it isn’t worth reading, you do need to understand that it’s not surprising to see them write an article celebrating the demise of developers.

As the article points out, Denver was building a ton of apartments leading up to this, but that was because we were far under stocked. Yes, rents should fall. All that said, if I have learned anything from past economic crisis, its that I would much rather own well located real estate than suburban real estate.

The author makes a claim that Denver is the 3rd most vulnerable city in the country, behind Detroit, but then provides no source or data. I think he is talking in terms of government tax receipts, but he isn’t specific. It would sure be nice if he backed up his claim with something. I’m not ready to take a statement like that as fact without some, you know, evidence.

I’m not a Pollyanna about any of this. There is real risk everywhere I look. I just don’t buy the idea that the suburbs are safe haven and that cities will be impacted more. Cities are the engine. If they suffer, everything suffers.

Ok, I haven't read a lot of their stuff, so I didn't know there initial bias. It's kinda strange because CCN and Glendale is all recent development, but maybe it's I'm here, now everybody else go somewhere else.

Normally I'd agree with you that closer to the traditional economic engine is safer, but COVID is just weird. You've got the 2 factors: shut downs questioning the viability of people dense activities and also a big work from home push, which is appearing to be more permanent than a temporary adjustment. Both of those favor the outer burbs with better pricing and more space over the inner city. Given Denver has a pretty significant price differential between the central city/county at $370 / sqft vs the metro rate of $260 / sqft (per Zillow), to me it just seems hard to imagine the central city could keep rising in prices through the next couple years when the rest of the metro would cater more to retirees and work from homers, the people that would be incoming most likely.

[mkwensky]

Has prices for SFH been trending downward since the pandemic? One would think that the mass eviction some are predicting would depress prices.

[2bindenver]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

Has prices for SFH been trending downward since the pandemic? One would think that the mass eviction some are predicting would depress prices.

No. No one is being evicted currently.

[Therblig]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

Has prices for SFH been trending downward since the pandemic? One would think that the mass eviction some are predicting would depress prices.

IMVHO, this is a bogus argument for both renting and buying because it's not a localized or fractional problem.

Mass eviction of nonpaying renters and owners will not produce a bumper crop of qualifying replacements; it will just produce huge pressure on cheaper rentals, a vast number of semi/homeless, and eventually a depressed market for both rentals and sales that will benefit no one.

Except the crowd that snapped up "investment rental" bargains in 2009, and may they choke on them.