Spring 2026: A Real Estate Market Worth Analyzing
By Jake Hubbell, ALC — Accredited Land Consultant, United Country | Colorado Brokers & Auctioneers
I had a seller call me last week, dead certain his property in the North Fork Valley was worth 30% more than what he’d paid for it in 2022. He’d watched 2021 happen, watched 2022 happen, and figured the run had just kept going. I had to walk him through what’s actually been going on since — because the spring of 2026 market doesn’t look anything like the spring of 2022 market, and a lot of sellers are still pricing their properties like it does.
So let me lay out where we actually are, what the data says, and what I’m telling my clients on both sides of the transaction.
What 70 Years of Home Prices Tell Us
Here’s a chart from Keeping Current Matters that I keep handy — annual change in home prices from 1956 to 2025, sourced from S&P Case-Shiller and Bilello.
Take a look at all that green. Out of 70 years, you can count the down years on one hand: 1990 at -1%, then 2007 through 2011 — six straight years in the red, with 2008 down a brutal 12%. That’s basically it. Every other year shows appreciation, some of them eye-watering — 1977 at +15%, 1978 at +16%, 2021 at +19%.
That’s a remarkably consistent track record. And it shows something a lot of headlines miss. While short-term shifts can happen, it’s the long-term gains that really matter.
Now zoom in on the last few years. 2020 (+10%), 2021 (+19%), 2022 (+6%), 2023 (+6%), 2024 (+4%), 2025 (+1%). That last number is the one nobody’s talking about. The run is over. The market has settled into a flat, balanced place we haven’t seen in five years.
Where the Spring 2026 Market Actually Sits
Three things define the market right now: more listings, fewer buyers, and higher interest rates than the recent norm. Each one feeds the next.
When rates were sitting at 3% during the pandemic, nobody who already owned a home wanted to give that rate up. Why would you? You’d sell a $500,000 home with a $1,700 monthly mortgage payment and buy a $500,000 home with a $3,200 monthly mortgage payment. Inventory dried up. Buyers were stuck bidding against each other for the few homes that did hit the market, and that’s how you get a +19% year like 2021.
Now? Rates have stayed elevated long enough that the lock-in effect has started to break. Sellers who actually need to move are moving — for a job, a family change, a downsize, an estate. Inventory is back. But the buyer pool that was chasing every listing in 2021 has thinned out, because those same elevated rates are sitting on their side of the table too.
The result is a 1% appreciation year — not a crash, not a boom, but a market that’s catching its breath.
The Seller Disconnect
Here’s the conversation I keep having. A seller looks at the run from 2019 to 2023 and assumes their property has kept appreciating at the same clip. The math in their head says their house has gone up another 15–20% since 2023. The math in the chart says it’s gone up about 5% total — and in a lot of submarkets, properties are sitting right at what they sold for in 2022.
This is not bad news. The market hasn’t gone down. But it hasn’t gone up the way sellers feel like it should have either. And if you’re going to price a property for the spring 2026 market, you have to recognize two things: there’s more inventory competing with you than there’s been in years, and there are fewer buyers walking through the door of any given listing. Overpricing in this market doesn’t get you a counter-offer. It gets you 200 days on market and a Zillow tag that reads “Likely overpriced.”
Why Buyers Think Homes Are Overvalued — And Where They’re Wrong
The other half of the conversation is the buyer who looks at every listing and tells me, “These are all overpriced.” I get it. Compared to 2019, they are. But compared to what it would cost to build the same house today? That’s a different math problem entirely.
Let me give you a real example. I own two lots in a newer subdivision in town in Hotchkiss. Here’s the actual replacement-cost math for putting a new 3-bedroom spec home on one of them.
Scenario 1: Build the Spec Home
- Lot value: $70,000
- Construction at $250/sq ft on a 1,600 sq ft 3-bed (not including garage): $400,000
- Garage, site work, soft costs, financing during construction: $50,000–$80,000
- All-in cost: $520,000–$550,000
Scenario 2: What the Market Will Actually Pay
- Comparable new 3-bed sale price in the area: approximately $500,000
Moral of the Story: It’s not worth pursuing. The numbers don’t pencil. And that’s the case in a lot of small Western Colorado markets right now — many existing homes and properties are currently priced beneath replacement cost. If a buyer walked in and offered to pay what it would cost to rebuild a 5-year-old house from scratch, the seller would be doing them a favor.
When buyers tell me homes are overvalued, my counter is simple: talk to a builder. Review construction costs. Market price isn’t always the same as replacement cost, and right now, the gap is sitting in the buyer’s favor more than they realize.
Sometimes It’s a Bad Time to Buy. It’s Never a Bad Time to OWN.
Here’s the line I keep coming back to with my clients: real estate is a patient investment. The days when you could buy a rural property, hold it for six months, and watch your equity grow by 10% — those days are in the past. They were a pandemic anomaly, not a baseline.
But pull back to the 70-year view. Land, ranches, mountain ground, recreational properties — these are solid investments if you play the long game. Look at the chart again. Even the worst stretch in modern memory, 2007 through 2011, was followed by a decade of steady appreciation that more than recovered the losses. The dips are real. The dips are also temporary.
Sometimes it’s a good time to buy. Sometimes it’s a bad time to buy. It’s never a bad time to OWN.
Two Questions Before You Sign Anything
When a buyer comes to me looking at properties, I ask two questions before we get into price, terms, or financing:
- Is this property actually the fit for what you’re looking for?
- How long are you planning to hold this investment?
If the answer to question one is “no” — if you’re talking yourself into a property because the price feels right or the interest rate is cooperating — walk away. There will be another one. If the answer to question two is “two years,” recreational ground is probably not your move. The transaction costs alone will eat your equity.
Lots of buyers are looking for properties that produce income. Like our Green Mountain Ranch property. It’s a mountain parcel that returns over 7% every year, not including the value appreciating over time.
But if the property is a fit and you’re planning to hold it for 10, 15, 20 years? Spring 2026 might be one of the better entry points we’ve seen since 2019, because the buyer pool has thinned and the urgency has come out of the market. That’s leverage.
Who’s Still Moving the Market
People will always need to buy and sell property. Right now, the most active categories I’m seeing in Western Colorado:
- Ranchers looking for additional grazing ground with solid water rights. Beef prices have made mountain grazing leases and valley hay production land economically attainable again, and the calls are coming in.
- Owners relocating for a job, getting closer to family, or downsizing in retirement. These transactions happen regardless of where rates sit.
- Builders and developers chasing transitional land near growing towns — because cities still need more housing supply, and land is what makes that supply possible.
The deals are out there. They’re just not landing in your lap the way they did in 2021.
A Closing Note on Counsel
When you’re looking at a real estate investment in this market — whether it’s a hunting ranch in GMU 61, a hay meadow in the North Fork Valley, or a country home outside Hotchkiss — work with an Accredited Land Consultant. Of the roughly 40,000 real estate agents in Colorado, fewer than a dozen carry the ALC designation. Gary Hubbell, Loren Williams, and I are three of them. That credential means experience in analyzing real estate investments, identifying the risks worth mitigating, and giving you a current read on market values that isn’t filtered through wishful thinking.
What most buyers are really looking for is a consistent, low-maintenance investment that produces some kind of return. Look at the chart. You can have that.
Time is the catalyst. The market just gave you a chance to be patient.
Jake Hubbell, ALC
United Country | Colorado Brokers & Auctioneers