Report offers hope in housing

Denver area stronger than many others

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 16, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The Denver-area housing market is looking strong compared with many other places in the country, according to a national report released Tuesday.

Only a dozen cities across the country were ranked better than the Denver-Aurora area, according to the PMI Mortgage Insurance Group's Winter 2008 Risk Index.

The index was based on third-quarter Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight data.

"Denver, actually, is looking reasonably good," said David Berson, chief economist for PMI.

"That doesn't mean prices will not fall," he said. "But it means there is a very low probability prices will be lower than they are today in two years. That is pretty good news. That's better than the news in Las Vegas, for example."

Riverside-San Bernadino in California was deemed the riskiest market, followed by Las Vegas. Much of California and Florida, which had previously seen a huge run-up in prices - much of it driven by investors - were ranked as very risky markets by PMI. Fort Worth, Texas, was ranked as the metro area with the least amount of risk.

LaVaughn Henry, director of U.S. economic analysis, said PMI uses a "high-faluting economic model" to judge each metropolitan area by five metrics: housing price movement, affordability, changes in local labor markets, housing supply and foreclosures.

"Denver looks pretty good in four of the five," he said. "The positives in four of the five more than make up for your foreclosures, your one weak area."

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207

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