Patty Silverstein, principal of Development Research Partners and economist for the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., doesn’t buy Money magazine’s contention that Denver’s residential real estate market has another 15 percent to fall, before it hits bottom in 2011.
“I really do not understand where they are coming from on that,” Silverstein told me this afternoon. “It sounds crazy. I don’t believe it whatsoever. It almost seems like they are looking at the wrong data. I say that kind of in jest, but I really do not understand where they came up with this.’
Silverstein said that all of the evidence she has seen indicates that the Denver-area real estate market is on the mend, and one of best-poised metropolitan statistical areas in the country. According to Money only Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix will lose more ground than Denver before recovering. While that part may be true, is Denver really in worse shape in terms of real estate than Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, and many others? Are prices going to drop twice as much than in San Francisco, as Money predicts.
Silverstein said that while the Denver-area economy has suffered some recent hits, and may continue to have some issues such as increased unemployed, relative to most of the rest of the country, Denver is in good shape. Indeed, she told me she believes that Denver will help lead the nation out of this economic stupor.
And that bodes well for home prices.
“Our expectations that we are seeing from a lot of indicators – sales activity, interest in the markets, falling inventory, little new construction – is that why we are really not expecting this year to be a great year by any stretch of the imagination, we expect to see some firming up by the end of the year,” Silverstein said. “For them to think that we are going to work through some huge downward-price issues until first quarter 2011, really does seem crazy.”
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