CSBJ Daily

Multiple Listing Service listings declined 2 percent during the first half of 2008 in Colorado Springs and annuals sales dropped 17 percent, according to Metrostudy.

“As a result, the supply of existing homes rose from 6.7 months last June to 7.9 months this year,” said John Covert, director of the company’s Springs division. “This oversupply, in addition to high foreclosure activity, will continue to force prices down. Single-family home prices fell 2 percent during the 12 months ending in June 2008 to $215,316; attached-home prices declined 9 percent to $126,000.”

The new-home market also continued to contract.

“After peaking at more than 6,000 housing starts in the fourth quarter of 2005, the market began to slow,” Covert said. “The contraction is expected to continue well into 2009, at which point housing starts should begin to outpace new-home closings.”

Colorado Springs builders started 525 single-family homes during the second quarter of 2008, slightly more than the previous two quarters, but still below the norm. Annual starts fell to 2,271 units during the second quarter, a 31 percent decline from the previous year.

Builders closed 692 homes in the second quarter and annual closings fell 31 percent during 2007 to a record low of 2,877 closings.

Total single-family housing inventory, which is composed of units under construction, finished vacant units and model homes, has dropped nearly every quarter since mid-2006. There were only 1,310 homes in inventory at the end of the second quarter. Under-construction inventory dropped to 514 units in June, by far the lowest level in the last five years.