Real Estate in Colorado is booming with Denver currently being ranked the third hottest home market in the country. As the past 24 months have shown, sellers rejoiced about the rapid increases in home values that enabled many to buy-up into the Colorado Real Estate market. At the same time, many would-be homebuyers experienced the agony of being priced out of the market. The news was not all bad for Denver-area homebuyers, however, as 73,000 of them have proudly stood atop the proverbial podium, to celebrate their victories in the past two years. The residential housing market has experienced a 23% boom in home appreciate values year-to-date since 2014.
We are continuing to experience a backup in appraisals as they continue to take longer than ever before, causing widespread delays with closings. Specifically appraisals for VA loans are taking up to three to five weeks to be assigned an appraiser and once the appraisal order is picked up, the appraisal has another 10 days to complete the report. These extended wait times are due to the lack of appraisers in the Colorado Real Estate market. VA appraisals have watched their turnaround times lengthen considerable as appraisers gravitate to doing more conventional appraisals where they can command a much higher appraisal fee. The VA has finally wised up, and they will be increasing their fees on November 1st to become more competitive. Realistically, their turnaround times should begin to shorten afterwards.
Information was provided by the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.
