Maybe somebody at Forbes magazine grew up in Colorado Springs, or has a second home here or enjoys summer visits to The Broadmoor hotel and Garden of the Gods.
Whatever the reason, Forbes — unlike much of the rest of the national news media, which have focused recently on darkened streetlights and other budget woes — continues to find good things to say about Colorado Springs. This month, Forbes ranked the Springs as No. 6 on its Top 10 list of America’s Best Housing Markets For Investors.
For its story, Forbes asked Local Market Monitor, a North Carolina-based real estate research firm, to identify communities where housing prices have a good chance to rise in the next few years — thereby holding promise for investors.
To determine a Top 10 list, Local Market Monitor examined how a community’s home prices fared during the economic downturn, but also looked at factors such as job and population growth.
In Colorado Springs’ case, the research firm projected that home prices will remain flat over the next three years after falling 3 percent in the second quarter of this year. But the Springs was identified as attractive for investors because it had a 9 percent population gain during the last decade.
“Markets with longer-term prospects in general have had above-average population growth between 2000 and 2005,” Ingo Wizner, Local Market Monitor president, says in the Forbes article.
Raleigh-Cary, N.C., ranked No. 1 on Forbes’ list; its population increased 18 percent from 2000 to 2005. Denver-Aurora ranked eighth on the Forbes list and had a 9 percent population gain during that span.
Will such a ranking spur homebuying?
“If you read Forbes magazine and you believe in everything that you read there, and you’re an investor, yeah, you’ll want to buy in the top 10 cities,” said Renate Carrier, a member of the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors board and a broker associate with residential brokerage Equity Colorado.
But for other buyers, she added, traditional factors will influence their decisions — quality of life, good schools and attractive prices and borrowing rates.
Barbara Asbury, the Realtor Association’s incoming board chairwoman and managing broker of Peak Realty & Consulting, said a mention in the national story will help attract investors.
She’s also more optimistic than Forbes when it comes to prices over the next three years. Other cities saw large, double-digit declines during the housing downturn; Springs-area prices never fell that far, and therefore the local housing market is better positioned to see a rebound in appreciation, she said.
Two years ago, Forbes ranked Colorado Springs as No. 7 in its Top 10 list of cities where home prices were expected to increase. In 2009, Colorado Springs ranked 10th on Forbes’ Best Places for Business and Careers list. And this year, Forbes ranked the Springs as the nation’s sixth-most wired city for broadband connections.
