The Fort Collins Real Estate Market is Starting to Move

Fossil Lake Ranch Neighborhood - Fort Collins

Sales of High-End Fort Collins Homes are Picking Up

It’s been two years of hard times for Fort Collins high end neighborhoods. The Fort Collins real estate market seems to be breaking this trend.

Fort Collins real estate agents specializing in high-end homes are now able to sell many listings within months, not years. Homes in Fort Collins and Homes in Loveland in the market segment with a price floor of $400,000 have risen sharply, and Fort Collins home sales are more frequent these days.

Values Bounce Back

Just as sales are beginning to pick up, strong signs that Fort Collins home values have also recovered are beginning to appear.

Values calculated by national real estate data provider Zillow show average single-family home value in ZIP code 80528 — the priciest homes in Fort Collins — was at $299,800 in August, the company’s most recent data snapshot.

That’s up slightly more than 7 percent from the $280,000 trough that followed the housing collapse of late 2008.

But the quiet revival of the real estate market that is in the upper reaches is beginning to turn heads, especially among owners of those homes who have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the right time to go on the market.

Fort Collins current listings include 177 homes priced above $500,000, with 35 of those listed for more than $1 million.

In Loveland, 125 homes are on the market for more than $500,000, and 33 for $1 million and up.

The real estate market is easing back slowly. And with a fantastic quality of life who wouldn’t want to live in Fort Collins.

Among many buyers are the rising number of physicians who have been drawn to Larimer County with the 2007 opening of Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland and the Harmony Medical Campus in Fort Collins 10 years ago.

Credit Loosens

Financing has eased a bit and the stranglehold that lenders had on the market following the 2008 housing collapse has begun to ease, allowing more affluent buyers to enter the market.

One of Fort Collins hottest-selling neighborhoods, Fossil Lake Ranch at the southeast quadrant of Ziegler and Kechter roads, features higher end homes selling from about $400,000 to well over $2 million. With great schools all within walking/biking distance you would be hard-pressed to find a better location in Fort Collins.