A recent sale by Scott Franklund at $4.750 million
coloradohomes.com
A Space Race in Boulder County Buyers clamoring for the Boulder lifestyle will do about anything to get it; even pay now for a home they won’t be able to occupy for years “He knows there’ll be nothing like it here by
list at $2.3 million – after eight rapid showings and
then,” Franklund added. “It’s not about what
two offers – up from an estimated $1.4 million at the
it is; it’s about what it could be.”
start of the 2008-09 downturn. Any future expansion of a home in unincorporated areas is hemmed in by
Coldwell Banker Previews agent Scott Franklund shows a new listing near Niwot at $2.795 million
The market that urges such frenzied moves
ordinance to a max of 6,000 square feet depending on
is the product of too many buyers chasing
surrounding development. Heading northeast from
too few homes and lots, in a county with a
the airport across a landscape dotted with farms and
program controlling 97,000 acres of open
newer subdivisions, Franklund shows how this unfolds
space, while seeking more. “There’s just a
to consumers: Landowners get compensated for
handful of developable lots left,” he added.
‘transferable development rights’ – TDRs – in exchange
In addition to the supply-demand dynamic,
for turning land over to open space. Buyers, meanwhile,
that system tends to generate premium prices for what
By Mark Samuelson
Franklund calls ‘beachfront lots’
It was June, and Boulder-based Coldwell Banker agent
Silicon Valley CEO, backing to the
Scott Franklund had already broken past the whopping
open space perimeter.
may be able to buy credits to build bigger.
like the one under contract to the
$40 million in sales he’d posted for the entire year of 2012. But one of those purchases struck him as
“It’s exponential,” he said, noting
particularly poignant: For $4.9 million, a 43-year-old
that sales volume in Boulder
Silicon Valley CEO had closed on a Boulder resale that
County’s luxury market is up
he had no plans to occupy for at least two years. “He’s
around 55% year-over-year, with
placed it with a management company,” Franklund said
prices running 25% higher. That
over lunch at Twenty Ninth Street Mall, adding that the
puts a larger, semi-custom home
client also has an agreement with the tech firm he’s
in a mixed-quality subdivision near
chaired, not to leave California before 2015.
Boulder’s old airport on his ‘sold’
Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall