Colorado #2 in home foreclosures

[MJLO]

This from the Denver Post.

The state of Colorado fell from being the state with the most home forclosures, to the state with the second most forclosures. Apparently, home prices in Colorado were rising at a rapid rate and people fell for that whole , buy a house and make 50k over night thing. So alot of people are caught in the housing slowdown that's happening now. It mentions states like Arizona, California, and Florida as having high rising forclosure rates. An economist said the slowdown is far from over. From people who are from CO what do you guys think? What cause this problem in Colorado? It is a healthier state economically correct?

[r3gul8or]

This from the Denver Post.

The state of Colorado fell from being the state with the most home forclosures, to the state with the second most forclosures. Apparently, home prices in Colorado were rising at a rapid rate and people fell for that whole , buy a house and make 50k over night thing. So alot of people are caught in the housing slowdown that's happening now. It mentions states like Arizona, California, and Florida as having high rising forclosure rates. An economist said the slowdown is far from over. From people who are from CO what do you guys think? What cause this problem in Colorado? It is a healthier state economically correct?

[Front_Range_Guy]

I think two things are going on. First, the econemy is fairly strong now and looking up for 2007... but we are coming out of a pretty big recession that started in 2001 and people are still feeling the effects. They may have been struggling for several years to keep their homes and finally reached that point where it wasn't financially feasable and they were forced into foreclosure. I also think the housing market is correcting itself. The market is overbuilt and overpriced, and a lot of people simply bought homes they couldn't afford. Unfortunately, foreclosure has skyrocketed and home sales have tanked in places like Colorado Springs, who's econemy rode through the recession on home sales... but I do think it's just a correction. Thus far home builders have refused to cut back their prices... but at some point they're going to have to if they want to sell houses.

We'll come out of this correction okay... and hopefully it will slow some of the extreme sprawl happening around Denver and Colorado Springs.

I can really only speak for Colorado Springs and Pueblo... and in The Springs we've had some layoffs announced recently, but we've also had some pretty major announcements of new jobs coming to town too. Just this week a company based I think out of Florida announced it's bringing 550 jobs to town... so in the end we should come out even or slightly ahead, and a major influx of new troops to Fort Carson from Fort Hood over the next few years is also expected to help fuel the econemy.

I guess this article in todays Gazette tells the economic story pretty well... the news is mixed, but generally positive.

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1327666&secid=4

[MJLO]

Another article about housing slowdowns. This time from the Coloradoan ( Fort Collins ) Shows the housing index at 53.4 from 67.7 in October. What has happened in two months to drop it so dramatically? Why has Colorado shown such a huge shift moreso than the rest of the country. Especially when there are other states in much worse economic situations.

[Front_Range_Guy]

Everyone who needed new houses bought them LOL?

I don't know... but I'm not too worried about it.

[Front_Range_Guy]

Here's kind of an interesting article related to this issue that appeared in todays Pueblo Chieftain.