Economic Outlook for Colorado Springs Is Extremely Good

[Robin Searle]

Yesterday I attended the annual UCCS Colorado Springs Economic Forum led by Tim Quinlan, Director & Sr. Economist with Wells Fargo Securities and Dr. Tatiana Bailey, Director of the UCCS Economic Forum.  Tim spoke to the broader outlook for the US and Tatiana focused on Colorado and more specifically Colorado Springs.  Last year Tatiana was predicting a slight recession at the end of 2019 and has revised her outlook to be extremely positive for our growing city.  We have had significant growth in the higher wage categories of technology and healthcare with our new median salary beating out Denver at $73,125 for those categories.  Employment is strong, population growth projections are huge, yet our housing affordability index remains one of the best in the nation (even after an 11% housing price increase since 2017).  Our mayor, John Suthers, also spoke and we are making some good strides in addressing homeless issues (city council just allocated an additional $500,000 to the Springs Rescue Mission and Salvation army), and they are actively working to increase our funding for fire fighters and police. Vacancy rates remain low and the rental market is projected to stay extremely strong.  Our population stood at 674,933 in El Paso County in 2015 and is projected to grow to 1,083,676 by 2050.  Great news for those of us fortunate enough to live and work in the Pikes Peak Region!

[Les Goss]

Things are definitely looking rosy right now in the Springs. As @Robin Searle noted, virtually all the stats are good and getting better. We're even seeing Denver home-shoppers and investors buying in our northern neighborhoods, contributing to the net out-migration that is being reported for Denver based on the cost of housing there. 

However, I am seeing a large number of price reductions being reported in the MLS lately. With the 1% per month appreciation we're seeing and the very short time on market, I think some sellers got over-confident about what the market will bear and have found out there is a limit to what people are willing to pay.