Rent growth has slowed in Colorado Springs over the past two years

For the first time in years, I updated the Colorado Springs vacancy and rent graphs.

First, let's look at the vacancy rate for the region.  During the third quarter of 2019,  the Colorado Springs vacancy rate fell to 5.0 percent. That's down from 5.4 percent during the second quarter, and it was down from 5.2 percent as recorded during the third quarter of 2018, one year earlier.

2019's third quarter rate was the lowest vacancy rate recorded since the third quarter of 2016, when the rate was 4.0 percent.

This suggests vacancies are in a downward trend at the moment, but there rate isn't exactly at historical lows. Five percent suggests mostly full units, but I wouldn't describe it as an especially "tight" market.

Not surprisingly, though, this decline in vacancy in the last two years has come with rent growth — but not a lot of rent growth.

From the third quarter of 2017 to the third quarter of 2019, the average rent grew 8.6 percent (or 98 dollars) from $1,113 to $1,231.

This is an average, so is skewed upward by new construction. As noted in October in the Gazette:

Most Colorado Springs-area apartment projects built in recent years have been upscale, amenity-filled communities that command top dollar for rents, said Laura Nelson, the Apartment Association’s executive director.

“The only supply we’re adding is high end,” she said. “So when you add high-end units, then it pulls your average up. That doesn’t necessarily mean than everything is going up that high. But when that’s all that you’re adding in, it throws off the average.”

Though several apartment projects have been built in recent years, the overall supply might not be keeping up with demand.

In the third quarter, only about 2,600 of the area’s supply of 51,142 apartments were available for rent — a 5 percent vacancy rate that was the lowest in three years, the Housing Division and Apartment Association report shows.

Nearly 750 units have been added to the area’s supply in the first three quarters of the year, which is about the same number as during the same period in 2018, according to the report. Even so, an additional 1,178 apartments have been occupied since the start of the year.

If we looked at growth in median rent, the increased would like be smaller, since median numbers are less skewed by new product. I don't have the median numbers yet for the third quarter, but the growth in median rent from the third quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2019 actually went down by 10.9 percent. This may have been driven by declines in rents in older and less desirable units.

Year-over-year growth in average rent has slowed over the past two years compared to 2016-2017 when YOY growth frequently topped ten percent.

New Mesa County Foreclosures Hit 12-Year Low in December

Last time, we saw that "releases of deeds of trust" spiked in Mesa County. That suggests some strong demand for for-sale housing in the GJ metro area.

So, not surprisingly, we also find that foreclosures in the area fell to a 12-year low in the area. In fact, these numbers may be lower than anything we've seen in much more than 12 years, but I only have data going back to 2008. In other words, there were fewer new foreclosures in December 2019 than in any other month during which I collected this data.

Specifically,  during December, there were 11 notices of election and demand.  The "NED filing" is the first step in the foreclosure process. That's down from 17 in November 2011, and it's down from December 2018 when 19 NEDs were filed. As the blue line shows below, the NED filings total is even down from where it was in 2008.

The other measure of foreclosure activity "auction sales" has not dropped off quite as much. The "sale" step of the process is the end of the foreclosure process when the property is auctioned off to a new owner.

During December, a total of five properties were foreclosed and sold at auction. That's a low number, but not the lowest we've seen over the past 12 years. Sales totals have been largely flat over the past year, and have returned to what we saw back in early 2008.  Nonetheless, foreclosure auction sales can be said to be at historic lows.

This follows a general statewide trend. Most Colorado counties have seen big decreases in foreclosure activity with combined statewide totals also dipping near 12-year lows.

Moreover, keep in mind the population of both Mesa County and the state have increased over the past decade, so on a per capita basis, foreclosure activity has fallen well below where they were before 2008.

Releases of deeds of trust surge in Mesa County

A release of a deed of trust is an event that occurs when a deed of trust (often referred to as  a mortgage) is paid off, either through refinance, sale, or when all payments have been completed on a home loan. It is a "positive" economic indicator in sense that areas with improving economies tend to generally also report increases in releases of deeds of trust.

Other factors can be important as well. In cases where there is a housing shortage, but other economic indicators are robust, we might also see declining release activity. It's not always easy to know which factors are the key factors in whether or not releases are going up or down. 

We do know, though, that releases tend to go up when interest rates fall. And releases tend to go down when interest rates rise. We've seen this in the combined release data for the state's biggest countries.

Combining the state's big metro counties (plus Broomfield County) we saw that releases headed down in late 2018 as the Federal Reserve began to allow the fed funds rate to rise. The mortgage rate then followed suit, and releases trended downward. During 2019, however, the Fed began to push rates down again, and releases rose again at the same time:

So far, I only have the data for the combined metros through October. 

An odd thing happened in Mesa County during December, though. According to the Mesa County public trustee's latest data, releases spiked to the highest level I've seen since I began keeping track of releases back in 2008. 

Releases have generally been hovering between 600 and 800 per month in the county over the past two years. But in December, the total shot up to 1,253. That's a huge increase. For instance, in December 2018, the total number of releases was 569:

Based on what I have so far for the other metro counties, many counties are experiencing sizable increases — but this increases appears to be significantly larger than the other counties.  I spoke with the Mesa County PT and confirmed this is correct data, and it is not due to an administrative backlog or an artifact of processing. It does appear to be a result of real events in the local economy. It appears many homeowners in Grand Junction had the opportunity to refinance in December, and many took it. 

We'll know more at the end of January if this is a trend, or if just a quick spike that will soon return to normal. But in either case, the surge in releases suggest confidence in the local housing market on the part of lenders and investors in the secondary market. It may also suggest lenders anticipate the Fed will continue to take a dovish view on inflation and interest rates.

Colorado Gets More than Half of Its Revenue from Income Tax

Pew breaks it down. I was surprised by how little revenue is generated from severance taxes. And, of course, there is no statewide property tax thanks to TABOR.

In March, 'release of deeds of trust' down 23 percent

A release of a deed of trust is an event that occurs when a deed of trust (often referred to as  a mortgage) is paid off, either through refinance, sale, or when all payments have been completed on a home loan. It is a "positive" economic indicator in sense that areas with improving economies tend to generally also report increases in releases of deeds of trust.

Other factors can be important as well. In cases where there is a housing shortage, but other economic indicators are robust, we might also see declining release activity. It's not always easy to know which factors are the key factors in whether or not releases are going up or down. 

Since early 2017, the general trend in release activity has been downward. In March 2018, releases totaled 21,304. That's up 11 percent from February 2018, when releases totaled 19,095. Overall, however, monthly data shows that monthly release totals have fallen repeatedly since December 2016's peak of 33,943:

Looking at annual totals, we find that 2017's total was down from 302,249, dropping to 297,151. That's still above 2015's total, however, and well above 2014's totals. 

The trend in year-over-year changes has also shown a decline. Over the past nine months, releases have been down every month, when compared to the same month a year earlier. In March 2018, releases were down 23 percent, compared to March of 2017 — when releases totaled 27,798. 

Another factor at work may be rising interest rates. Since re-finance activity is a factor in releases, and since re-fi's often slow as rates increase, we may be seeing slowing release activity as a result of significant increases in  mortgage rates over the past year. Mortgage rates are now the highest they've been since 2013:

For more on historical release activity in Colorado, see here. 

Foreclosures in Colorado's Metro Counties Remain Near Multi-Year Lows

Foreclosure activity in Colorado metropolitan counties continues to be near multi-year lows. Over the past two years, foreclosure rates have been exceptionally low compared to the previous decade. 

March 2018 foreclosure filings were down 20 percent from March 2017, dropping from 540 to 432, year over year.

March 2018 foreclosure sales (completed foreclosures) were down compared to March 2017 with a decrease of 33.9 percent, dropping from 177 to 117, year over year.  

Filings rose 6.1 percent from February 2018 to March 2018, and auction sales were up 19.4 percent over the same period.

For the first three months of 2018 as a whole, foreclosure filings were down 11.8 percent, compared to the same period of last year. Filings fell from 1,429 for the first three months of 2017 to 1,260 during the same period of 2018. Foreclosure sales were also down during the same period: sales fell 24.9 percent from 450 to 338.

Pueblo County reported the highest foreclosure rate during March, while Boulder County reported the lowest rate. 

Comparing the first three months of this year to the first three months of last year, both filings and sales were down: 

Filings for Jan-Mar:

Sales for Jan-Mar: 

There's not a whole lot to say here except that foreclosure rates are low, and currently show no signs of heading back upward. So long as home prices continue to climb quickly upward, even those homeowners who have troubles with income can always just sell their homes in order to avoid foreclosure. 

Housing: High Prices, Few New Units

(Adapted from an article published at Mises.org.)

During the housing bubble that ended in 2007-8, the amount of new housing construction was remarkable. Enormous subdivisions were being constructed in metro areas across the land. Buildings of condominiums sprang up in city centers, and the ready availability of credit meant many were buying more than one house as "investments" or summer homes. New housing, it seemed, was everywhere. 

At the same time, home prices were increasing, driven up in part by fact that everyone was convinced that housing prices always go up, and real estate — any real estate — was a rock solid investment. 

When the bubble popped, there was suddenly a housing glut. From Las Vegas to Florida, we heard about buildings of condos that were more than half empty, and about suburban housing developments that became ghost towns. 

On the most superficial level, the current boom might remind some of the pre-2008 bubble. Housing prices are climbing fast, and in many areas, there are bidding wars for houses that are quite ordinary. 

This time, though, things are different. This time, there isn't nearly as much housing being built was during the last bubble. There may be a bubble in prices this time, but there does not appear to be a bubble in construction. 

A look at housing starts in recent years shows that in raw numbers, starts are still not even close to getting back to where they were during the last boom: 

Now, some might think "it's good we not going back to bubble levels." True enough. But when we take into account growth in new households, we see that current construction trends are even weaker than the graph above suggests, and are below even more commonly-seen non-bubble levels of construction. 

As both the Wall Street Journal and USA Today noticed last month, the amount of new housing construction taking place right now, as a proportion of existing households, is at historic lows. USA Today reports:

Since the real estate market crash took the wind out of the construction boom of the 2000s, fewer homes are being built per U.S. household than at nearly any time in history.

And the Wall Street Journal concludes:

Home construction per household a decade after the bust remains near the lowest level in 60 years of record-keeping...What makes the slump puzzling is that by most other measures, the American economy is booming. Jobs are plentiful, wages are on the rise and the stock market is near record highs. Millennials, the largest generation since the baby boomers, are aging into home ownership.

When we look at new housing construction compared to total households going back to 1959, we find that 2009 and 2010 were years with the smallest amount of new construction in decades:

Only the early 90s are comparable to what happened in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. 

Moreover, since 2010, new construction has rebounded remarkably little. 

Last year, the Kansas City Fed produced a similar analysis, and the results were pretty much the same: new housing construction, taking household growth into account, now remains near a multi-decade low. 

But why has this happened? The Fed Report considers a number of options, including:

One reason is that builders in many metropolitan areas are facing a shortage of qualified construction workers. In addition, smaller builders, which account for the majority of single-family development in some mid-sized metropolitan areas, are having trouble financing land purchases and construction....A third explanation is the limited availability of undeveloped land in desired locations. 

Some of these factors were due to accidents of history. Many of the Mexican immigrants who worked in construction in the US in the decade following the 1994 Mexican financial crisis now are less interested in working in the US thanks to improvements in the Mexican economy. Since 2009, net migration from Mexico has fallen below zero. Some of those leaving took their homebuilding skills with them. 

Meanwhile, finding inexpensive financing for land acquisition and construction has been difficult as money has been siphoned off to other forms of bubble investment as central-bank produced asset inflation continues. 

While real estate is certainly affected by expansive monetary policy, bubbles inflate in unpredictable ways. During the last bubble, investors grew enamored with housing, and money flowed accordingly. But nowadays, as Brendan Brown has often noted, other investment "narratives" have directed many investors' attention elsewhere. It's no longer assumed that housing prices will always go up. Meanwhile, lumber costs, labor costs, and regulatory costs at the local level continue to push up production costs. Since the advent of Dodd-Frank, small banks have been more often squeezed out by a handful of huge banks. As small banks disappear, so does access to financing for many smaller builders in smaller markets. 

Taking all of these things together, the supply of housing is not recovering to more historically normal levels. 

This doesn't mean demand for housing has gone away, of course. Population growth has not contracted like housing construction has. Vacancy rates are down and housing prices in both rental housing and in single-family housing continues to head upward.

And this lackluster production is all happening during a period of expansion. Presumably, it should be easy to find financing to build housing right now, and to find buyers who can pay a price that will cover expenses for homebuilders. That doesn't seem to be happening.