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Colorado - Mon. 12/23/24 |
A Free Business Publication from Alpine Bank
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NOTICE OF HOLIDAY CLOSURES FROM ALPINE BANK
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All Alpine Bank branches will be closed at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 24 and all-day Wednesday, Dec. 25 as well as Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. We invite you to use Alpine Online or the Alpine Mobile app for 24/7 banking access, even when we are closed. Learn more at the link below. Have a safe and happy holiday!
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DIA LOOKING TO EXPAND LANES OF PEÑA BLVD., FAA, CDOT SAY NO TO FUNDING
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Travelers going through Denver International Airport over the past few years are well aware of the $2.1 billion remake going on inside the terminal to boost its capacity. However, nothing has relieved the time spent on the road getting to DIA. The 11-mile trip on Peña Boulevard, which began as an eight-minute drive, now regularly takes half an hour. DIA officials want to add lanes to Peña Boulevard, but there is no help for funding the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take as both the Federal Aviation Administration and the Colorado Dept. of Transportation have said they would not fund any portion of expanding the road leading to DIA. Peña Boulevard was built to carry up to 75,000 vehicles a day, but by 2023, the average daily traffic reached 136,000 and is even higher than that now.
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DENVER ZOO HAS CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AT NIGHT AND FREE DAY ADMISSION FOR KIDS
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The Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance is offering “Free Kids December” in partnership with Primrose Schools. All children, 15 and younger, will receive free daytime admission through the end of the year. The free admission opens the zoo’s entire 80-acre campus and more than 2,500 animals to youngsters and includes popular habitats like Toyota Elephant Passage, Benson Predator Ridge, Down Under and the recently renovated Tropical Discovery. The Denver Zoo also offers daily animal talks and demonstrations with Asian elephants, African penguins, bighorn sheep, flamingos, vampire bats, tigers, and other animals. The zoo is open daily, except Christmas Day, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parents accompanying children can purchase tickets for $15.75. Those 65 and older can purchase tickets for $13.65. Denver Zoo Lights run through Jan. 5. Tickets can be purchased online at denverzoo.org/events/zoo-lights.
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COLORADO GEARING UP ITS “LAST RESORT” PROPERTY INSURANCE COMPANY
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The Colorado Legislature last year approved the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, which gave the governor the authority to create the first new public property insurance program in the United States in 40 years. The Colorado FAIR Plan is expected to be in business in early 2025. The need to create a public insurance program intensified after wildfires in 2020 and 2021 destroyed billions of dollars' worth of property. The FAIR Plan is a "last chance" for property owners to secure insurance and to qualify, a commercial building owner or homeowner must have been denied coverage by three companies. The FAIR Plan will be led by a nine-member board of directors, funded through fees charged to mainstream insurers, like State Farm, Allstate, and others. The FAIR Plan will cap coverage for a single-family home at $750,000, and will not be a replacement cost policy, but only cover the depreciated cost to repair or replace a house.
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141-YEAR-OLD FAMILY GROCERY IN GEORGETOWN TO GO UP FOR SALE
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In 1883, Henry Kniesel and his son-in-law, Emil Anderson, opened the Kneisel & Anderson grocery in 1883 in Georgetown and ten years later moved it across the street. In 1912, the two men bought the hardware store next door. Henry Kneisel was a baker from Germany when he landed in Georgetown in the 1870s, working for the Guanella family. He hired a young man named Emil Anderson, who ended up marrying his daughter, Cora Kneisel. The two ran the grocery store, with the help of their kids, until 1950 when Emil Anderson died. Family members continue to run the store today. Coralue Anderson, the great-granddaughter of Henry Kneisel, was at the counter every day for 30 years until she died on Nov. 7 on her 87th birthday.
Two siblings of Coralue Anderson, Wendy and Smoky Anderson, are now running the business, and have decided to finally sell the store. They would love to find a buyer of their historic property and business who could continue the specialty food business. But they are open to new ideas. Kneisel & Anderson has become a must-stop shop for anyone seeking hard-to-find Swedish foods. The store’s coolers have jars of pickled herring and imported cheeses. The shelves have all varieties of Northern European delicacies. There are also racks of Colorado-made jellies and honeys.
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CONGRESS PASSES, AND THE PRESIDENT SIGNS, A BUDGET EXTENSION
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Early Saturday morning, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to allow the federal government to continue to operate into March. The House had passed the legislation earlier. President Joe Biden signed the legislation later Saturday. The bill authorizes continued funding of the federal government at current levels for three months, until March 14, provides $100 billion in disaster relief aid and $10 billion in farm aid. The bill did not address the debt ceiling.
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MILAN WINTER OLYMPICS 2026 HAVE A BACKUP FOR BOBSLED, LUGE, SKELETON RACING
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The Winter Olympic Games are scheduled to begin Feb. 6, 2026, in Milano-Cortina, Italy. There is a slight problem…the bobsled, luge, and skeleton events could be held in upstate New York. The Milano-Cortina organizers insist they will have a track for those events completed in time for the games, however when the organizers did not have a contractor to build the track until early this year, the Italian government and International Olympic Committee demanded they have a backup. This month, Lake Placid, which hosted the games in 1932 and 1980, was officially designated as the Plan B site. There just aren’t that many tracks to choose from for Plan B. Only 16 tracks are in use in the world, according to the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation. Tracks are an enormous undertaking, roughly a mile long, expensive to build and maintain. Even the chief rival of Milan for the 2026 games, Stockholm, intended to use a track outside the country in Sigulda, Latvia.
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ENDANGERED FISH PROGRAMS INCLUDED IN DEFENSE SPENDING BILL
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The Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act was included in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. Congress approved the defense spending bill last week and the endangered fish programs were extended for seven years. The fish programs provide for studying, monitoring, and stocking the four fish species, managing habitat and river flows, and combating invasive species through 2031. The fish bill authorizes up to $92 million for the Bureau of Reclamation to contribute annual cost-shared funding for program implementation. It also adds up to $50 million to the authorization ceiling for capital projects, which will fund infrastructure improvements to benefit the fish.
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MESA COUNTY REMAINS STRONG IN REAL ESTATE SALES
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Bray Real Estate released its residential real estate sales report for November for Mesa County which showed for the first eleven months of the year, total residential property sales in Mesa County reached $1.12 billion. That is a 4.8 percent increase over the corresponding period in 2023. That total was achieved despite there being a 1 percent decline in the properties sold, down from 2,489 to 2,463. The median residential price in November was $415,000, a substantial 10 percent increase over the median price in November 2023 ($377,750). However, there was substantial fluctuation in the median price for residential properties, ranging from $359,000 in February to $430,000 in July, then backing off to $387,000 in August before jumping back up to $429,000 in September. Also, up 10 percent were days on the market for properties, from 61 to 67. There were 607 active listings on the market in November, a 17 percent increase over active listings last November.
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LINDSEY VONN UPDATE: THE COMEBACK WILL RESUME IN JANUARY
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Lindsey Vonn competed in her first World Cup event, the super-G race at St. Moritz on Saturday. She was out of the starting gates as the 31st starter because she was a wild card competitor and as a result was racing on a bumpier and more challenging course than the top-ranked racers. She had a slow beginning time but on the rest of the way down, she was competitive with the top five finishers. The 40-year-old Vonn had to put her comeback on hold as the second super-G race at St. Moritz scheduled for Sunday was canceled due to strong winds and poor visibility. The next speed races on the World Cup circuit are in St. Anton, Austria on Jan. 11-12, where Vonn will compete in her first downhill of her return as well as a super-G. After St. Anton, she plans to compete in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and hopefully qualify for the world championships in Saalbach, Austria, in February.
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WHO ARE THE SECOND HOMEOWNERS IN SUMMIT COUNTY?
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Julie Koster, executive director of the Summit Alliance of Vacation Rental Managers, working with staff and others, compiled a report on the demographics of short-term rental owners in Summit County. The researchers combed through databases, state and local, to develop their analysis which showed:
- 57 percent of Summit’s vacation rentals are owned by Coloradans
- 10 percent of those are Summit County residents
- 43 percent are out-of-staters, but only 1 percent are international
- The bulk of out-of-staters are from Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York, and California. Arizona is also emerging as a market trailing behind those states.
- There are very few owners of more than one rental property as 90 percent of the short-term rental owners own only one rental property in the county.
- Overall, there are 7,544 active short-term rental licenses in Summit County.
- The average daily rate from Jan. 1 to Sept. 5, 2024, was $355 and the average length of stay was 3.7 nights.
- The current average daily rate increased from $347 in 2023, and length of stay increased from 3.6 nights in 2023.
- Breckenridge collected around $7.2 million from short-term rental licensing fees, Frisco collected around $225,000 in licensing fees, Dillon collected $241,500, Silverthorne collected $157,200, Blue River collected $61,200 and unincorporated Summit County collected $526,400. These fees go toward initiatives such as workforce housing, childcare facilities, and infrastructure.
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HOME SALES MAY REBOUND SLIGHTLY IN THE STATE IN 2025
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Home sales in Colorado and nationwide have been sluggish over the past two years and it is unlikely that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will drop below 6 percent next year. It appears that although home sales may increase, there won’t be a strong rebound. Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors chief economist, during the NAR’s Real Estate Forecast Summit on Dec. 12, predicted that the median home price in the U.S. will rise 2 percent next year and 2 percent in 2026, but even these very modest increases will not improve affordability if mortgage rates remain stuck in the 6 percent range.
From July 2021 through September 2024, existing home sales moved lower on a year-over-year basis each month. In metro Denver and surrounding areas, about 20,000 fewer homes were sold year-to-date through November than in the same period in 2021, and 10,000 fewer than in 2022. Homeowners have built a record $5 trillion in home equity since the onset of COVID-19 and delinquencies are near record lows. About four in 10 homeowners have no mortgage and many of those who do are sitting on very low rates.
As a result, home sales in Colorado will continue to lag. No Colorado city makes NAR’s top housing hotspots for 2025, a list which includes Boston; Indianapolis; Phoenix; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Kansas City, Mo., among others. Metro Denver ranked last among the 20 cities tracked in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for annual price appreciation in September. And the price index for Denver is 2.5 percent below the peak reached in May 2022. The only Colorado location that appears to break the trend is Colorado Springs, which Realtor.com ranked as its top market for an increase in year-over-year home sales in 2025.
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REALTOR.COM: WHERE HOME SALES WILL INCREASE THE MOST IN 2025
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Sales of existing homes are expected to increase only 1.5 percent in 2025 nationally as mortgage rates will remain relatively high but, in the South, and West, the top markets are projected to increase in home sales ranging from 13.5 percent to 27.1 percent. Here the top cities forecast to experience the biggest year-over-year increase in existing home sales:
- Colorado Springs: +27.1 percent
- Miami, FL: +24 percent
- Virginia Beach, VA: +23.4 percent
- Richmond, VA: +21.6 percent
- McAllen, TX: +19.8 percent
- El Paso, TX: +19.3 percent
- Little Rock, AR: +18.6 percent
- Greensboro, NC: +17.3 percent
- Washington, D.C.: +17 percent
- Harrisburg, PA: +16.8 percent
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MARKET UPDATE - 12/20/2024 Close
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(Courtesy of Alpine Bank Wealth Management*)
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Canadian dollar (per U.S. dollar)
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Mexican peso (per U.S. dollar)
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30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac 12/19/2024)
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*Not FDIC insured. May lose value. Not guaranteed by the bank.
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Alpine Bank is an independent, employee-owned organization with headquarters in Glenwood Springs and banking offices across Colorado's Western Slope, mountains and Front Range. Alpine Bank serves customers with retail, business, wealth management*, mortgage and electronic banking services. Learn more at alpinebank.com.
*Alpine Bank Wealth Management services are not FDIC insured, may lose value and are not guaranteed by the bank.
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