A4HB Homebuyer's Blog

Housing in Each Community

If you’re looking for a home built in the 1990s, and you need something between 1600 and 2300 square feet, it may be useful to know that there are roughly 2300 homes like this in Longmont and only about 500 in Boulder. It is precisely that kind of data that we’ve compiled on a community basis in our charts in this section. If you want to see where in Boulder or Longmont you can find homes built in the 1990s, or prior to 1920 for that matter, the maps of housing stock in this section show which neighborhoods these homes

Read More »

Comparing Communities (2)

Every home buyer understands that they must make decisions about what type of home they want to buy and where they want to buy it. It is sometimes less obvious that good decisions on these issues depend on good information about what types of housing actually exist in the various communities the buyer is considering. A buyer who prefers to live in Boulder and wants a large home built since 1990 needs to understand that these homes make up only 3% of Boulder’s housing stock and are largely confined to only a couple of neighborhoods. That buyer should also know

Read More »

Comments on the Housing Stock Data

As indicated on each of the charts these data were gathered and summarized in February of 2007. The data was generated by downloading data on houses as well as condos and townhomes from the tax records data provided through the Metrolist MLS system. Properties classed as condos and townhomes in the tax records were combined into our category of “condos.” Data on the square footage of these properties (not including basement square footage) and their age were also downloaded and  used to create counts of properties in our various categories. Once categorized, these properties were then mapped using ESRI’s BusinessMap

Read More »

The Housing Stock in Each Community

In the section we’ve called Housing in Each Community, we’ve compiled detailed charts and maps on the housing stock in each of the communities in our area. The charts in this section are based on the same data as those in Comparing Communities, but they present the data on each community in much greater detail. First, they will give you a picture not only of the percentage of homes in each community that are of a given age or size, but they will also show the actual of numbers of homes meeting certain age/size criteria that exist in that particular

Read More »

Comparing Communities

In the section we’ve called Comparing Communities, we’ve put together summary data comparing the percentages of single family homes vs. condos/townhomes in each community as well as the relative number of homes of various ages and sizes in each community. If you’re looking for a home with more than 3,000 square feet (not including basement), for example, you’ll see in these charts that this size home constitutes less than 10% of the housing stock in communities like Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, Arvada, and Westminster, but in Erie and Superior these homes constitute 13-17% of the housing stock. Similarly, if you

Read More »

Housing Stock Basics

There are many factors that impact the process of locating the right home for a buyer, but one of the most important is the simple reality of what types of homes exist in the area we’re searching and where. For example, it might make perfect sense for a family to want to find a home near Pearl Street Mall in Boulder or Main Street in Louisville, because they like the ambiance of these neighborhoods. But this family may also want a home built after 1978 when the use of lead based paint was prohibited in residential structures. Both criteria make

Read More »