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Denver Post, Feb 3: New data released Thursday by the Colorado Division of Housing showed a vacancy rate of 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. That was down from 5.5 percent in the same period of 2010. The last time the fourth-quarter vacancy rate was lower than 2011's was in 2000, when it hit 4.7 percent. Division of Housing spokesman Ryan McMaken said that the fourth quarter normally is a "high vacancy quarter." "Usually if anybody moves out, no one moves in," McMaken said "The overall median rent in the Denver area has now increased year over year for eight quarters in a row, and the median rent has increased by almost $60 over that time," McMaken said. "The rent growth we're now seeing is more robust than what we saw during the last expansion between 2002 and 2008." Denver Business Journal, Feb3 The Q4 rate -- the lowest for the quarter since 2000 -- was up from the third quarter’s 4.9 percent vacancy percentage, but vac...

From the Denver Post: Ryan McMaken, economist and spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing, said the Alliance approach to today's rent vs. buy mentality makes sense. Some high-end renters prefer the added amenities — swimming pool, clubhouse, security and well-equipped gym — that come with the monthly rental price. Others don't know whether a job transfer will take them out of the market. "They don't want to get too attached to a property," McMaken said. And then there's the whole issue of the flat housing market and the potential of not being able to get the money out of a house that the buyer puts into it. "If you bought a house in '08, it's going to be several more years till you get back your money as far as equity goes," McMaken said.

In The Denver Post Mortgage loan payoffs hit 10-year low January 25, 2012 "Real estate activity perked up a bit during the fourth quarter, which would reflect some very recent growth in employment and some mild increases in home prices." said Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing. "But overall, the fourth quarter's activity wasn't enough to keep 2011 from being another flat year." The Colorado Springs Gazette January 25, 2012 Mortgage loan payoffs fall in Springs area But if there’s a sign of good news, it’s that mortgage payoffs in El Paso County totaled 8,023 in the fourth quarter of 2011 — an increase over each of the first three quarters of last year and a possible indication that housing activity is picking up, said Housing Division spokesman Ryan McMaken. The other 20 counties in the report also saw increases in the fourth quarter when compared with the third quarter. “After two years of declines in mortgage rates without any big...

From The Christian Science Monitor : Serious debt problems will continue, experts say Over the past 10 to 15 years, total debt outstanding in the US has grown as a much faster pace than population, and little has been done to deal with the debt in spite of widespread unemployment, flat personal income, and declining collateral values. By Ryan McMaken, Guest blogger / January 13, 2012 Read the full article .

Bloomberg recently published a piece that mentioned Colorado Real Estate: Plummeting Income Shaves Household Cash By Frank Bass and Timothy R. Homan - Dec 7, 2011 10:00 PM MT http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/plummeting-income-from-investments-shaves-u-s-household-cash.html Prices for existing U.S. homes fell over the decade in one of five U.S. counties, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Pitkin County, Colorado, homeowners were hardest hit. The median value of a home in the central Colorado county, home to the Aspen/Snowmass ski complex, fell $304,800, almost 10 times the decline in Oakland County, Michigan, the second-biggest loser. The median sales price was $1.2 million for the 63 homes sold during the third quarter of 2010 in the Aspen area, said Ryan McMaken, chief economist for the Colorado Division of Housing. During the third quarter of 2011, 68 homes were sold with a median sales price of $637,000, he said. “There aren’t a lot of fire sales, but there hasn’t bee...

9News picked up our October foreclosures release.

Fox 31 picked up our release on 3rd Q foreclosures.

9News picked up the August release on foreclosures.

Interview with Colorado Public Radio , August 11, 2011 Reporter: Which means the future’s bright for buyers who are looking to rent out their investment. Competition for single family homes will likely drive rents higher. Ryan McMaken is an economist with the Colorado Division of Housing. He says that competition for rentals could be a lasting effect of the recession. Ryan McMaken: People who want to rent houses or live in a single family house they can’t afford to buy one right now, they don’t have the down payment they don’t have the credit rating and so on they’re going to rent instead.

9News invited me in to discuss the second quarter foreclosure stats for Colorado. The story is here .

Fox31 stopped by to interview me on the latest apartment vacancy and rent report. Here's the story .

Originally posted at the Mises Economics Blog by Ryan McMaken The New York times recently noted that “Economy Faces a Jolt as Benefit Checks Run Out.” Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics… By the end of this year, however, many of those dollars are going to disappear, with the expiration of extended benefits intended to help people cope with the lingering effects of the recession. When this happens, it will be just the latest bubble to pop. As far back as 2008, Peter Schiff and other Austrian-minded observers contended that with the various stimulus packages, the feds were just blowing up a government benefits bubble to replace the real estate bubble, which had in turn replaced the dot-com bubble. The government benefits bubble can’t be maintained forever, so once the stimulus runs out, and as unemploymen...