Markets prevail in cities west of Mississippi while others bow
by Candyd Mendoza
The recent VeroFORECAST reported that small to modest-sized cities with an average population of 260,000 dominated both the top and bottom 10 metro areas for property value growth over the next year.
The nationwide residential real estate forecast by Veros Real Estate Solutions projects how property values in various metro areas will fare over a 12-month period.
Property values in the Boise, Idaho, area were predicted to appreciate the most through Dec. 1, 2019; property values in the Boise area were predicted to rise by 9.5% over the period. The report found that all the top 10 markets wre in Idaho, Washington, Texas, and Chicago.
The VeroFORECAST top 10 includes:
- Boise City-Nampa, Idaho: 9.5%
- Olympia, Wash.: 8.8%
- Midland, Texas: 8.7%
- Idaho Falls, Idaho: 8.6%
- Odessa, Texas: 8.4%
- Pocatello, Idaho: 8.2%
- Bellingham, Wash.: 8.2%
- Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Wash.: 7.8%
- Boulder, Colo.: 7.7%
- Grand Junction, Colo.: 7.5%
The predicted appreciation rates actually dropped an average of two points from 10.3% to 8.3%. Eric Fox, vice president of statistical and economic modeling at Veros and the author of the report, said that they do not see the drop as a crash, "but simply a slowing down as the strength of the past few years is expected to dissipate somewhat in most markets."
On the other hand, the bottom 10 includes:
- Farmington, N.M.: -2.6%
- Danville, Ill.: -1.4%
- Decatur, Ill.: -1%
- Peoria, Ill.: -1%
- Grand Forks, N.D.-Minn.: -0.8%
- Springfield, Ill.: -0.6%
- Cumberland, Md.-W. Va.: -0.5%
- Shreveport-Bossier City, La.: -0.5%
- Lafayette, La.: -0.4%
- Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn.: -0.4%
Scarce housing supplies helped propel prices upward in top markets, according to Fox. Meanwhile, population trends were still the primary variable to blame for the performance of the bottom 10 markets.
"In other words, either slow population growth or population declines are contributing to low demand in these areas and many of the bottom ten markets in this quarter's report are in very slow growth metros.” He said. “This, in conjunction with upward interest-rate pressure, is causing these markets to be soft."
