According to Henry Cisneros, who is a national housing expert as well as a former Cabinet secretary, it appears as if the worst of the housing market challenges have been put behind the state of Colorado.
“I think the bleeding has stopped in Colorado,” said Cisneros when referring to the state’s housing market. “There are no huge drops in price here, no large inventories.”
Cisnero, who is an advocate for equal opportunity ownership as well as the executive chairman of CityView, was recent in Denver discussing the recent Housing Finance Summit put on by the U.S. Treasury Department. CityView, which is a Los Angeles-based real estate investment company, has demonstrated its confidence in Colorado by investing in The Peloton condo development project taking place in Boulder.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, both of which are government-sponsored enterprises that purchase mortgages available on the secondary market and then pools then and sells them to investors as mortgage-backed securities, were also popular topics at the summit. It is no secret that the two government entities have taken partial blame for the national housing crisis and, as a result, were taken over by United States regulators just before property foreclosures and high loan delinquencies almost brought them to a collapse. Since this time, lawmakers have been trying to determine what to do with the two entities, with some even considering disbanding them, splitting them into multiple pieces or replacing them with an entirely new entity.
“I think it’s playing with fire to abolish Freddie and Fannie,” said Cisneros. “I think there will be a restructuring of them, but I don’t know what it will look like yet.”
Cisnero went on to explain that, despite the recent troubles, Fannie and Freddie both play a large role in helping Americans purchase a home. Furthermore, he maintained that privatization of the services they provide would result in an increase in mortgage costs.
When it comes to the Colorado housing market, and the Denver housing market in particular, Cisnero believes the area is starting to experience an upward trend partially because it was one of the first housing markets to experience troubles. Furthermore, economic experts believe the state’s relatively strong economy, which is largely based on future growth industries such as bioscience, technology and sustainable energy, will continue to attract workers from other states while also assisting the housing market.
“Colorado has the kind of economy that can come back…and Denver is a prototype for smart growth – sustainable, denser building,” added Cisneros in a recent report in the Denver Business Journal.
