Verdict grades housing conditions; buyer-timing, investor cash-flow, supply-tightness and county macro scores answer different questions — each in its own section.
Buyer / sellerbuyer-timing lens
Balanced Market
Needs 12.8% correction for affordability
DOM: 156d (rising) · Market Dynamics rolling median · hourly
Score Components
Payment Burden (25%)50
Valuation Gap (25%)10
Supply & Demand (20%)20
Buy vs Rent (15%)100
Cancellation Rate (10%)100
Days on Market (5%)100
Balanced market in 80540. List price is roughly fair — focus on condition and value. Payment burden: 33.7% of median income. Median days on market: 156. Renting is approximately 212% cheaper than buying (price-to-rent ratio: 37.4).
Balanced market conditions. Prices roughly aligned with fundamentals — similar to stable periods in 2014-2015.
STABLEBUYER ADVANTAGE
Market is holding steady with balanced conditions. Buyers have strong negotiating leverage. Prices down 1.2% YoY.
Turnover Index · Coming soonLotvox Turnover Index needs 30 recorded sales before a grade is published.
A single median rises whenever expensive homes become a bigger share of what sells, even if no tier got more expensive. These are the tiers underneath it, computed from recorded arms-length deed transactions in Boulder.
Aggregate median +1.9% YoY in Boulder, CO (county), but the under-$500k tier is -1.2% — the rise is mix shift, not appreciation. Over the same year the under-$500k share of sales moved from 22.2% to 21.6% (-0.6pp) and the $1M+ share from 28.2% to 29.2% (+1.1pp).
Current tiers · 12 months to Aug 25floor 10 sales/tier
4 tiers had too few sales in this ZIP and are shown at county or metro level — see the stamp on each row.
Tier
Median
$/sqft
Sales
Share
Source
Under $250k
$104k
$240
100
—
COUNTY · Boulder, CO
$250k–$500k
$415k
$409
737
—
COUNTY · Boulder, CO
$500k–$750k
$660k
$518
18
28.6%
ZIP
$750k–$1M
$872k
$568
10
15.9%
ZIP
$1M–$1.5M
$1.14M
$463
19
30.2%
ZIP
$1.5M–$2M
$1.68M
$687
243
—
COUNTY · Boulder, CO
$2M+
$2.60M
$876
261
—
COUNTY · Boulder, CO
All sales (the headline median)
$850k
$513
63
100%
ZIP
ZIP-level history was too thin to draw the tiers; served at county level (Boulder, CO), by quarter.
Share of sales by tier (quarterly)
If the upper tiers widen over time, the headline median rises on composition alone.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
$1.5M–$2M
$2M+
Median within each tier, against the headline median (quarterly)
The blue line is the single number NAR-style reporting quotes. The gold lines are what each tier actually did. Log scale — the tiers span an order of magnitude, and on a log axis equal slopes mean equal percentage moves, which is the comparison being made.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
$1.5M–$2M
$2M+
All sales (headline)
National context — not local
NAR's aggregate existing-home median for the United States and the West census region. This is the figure the tiers above are a check on. It is national/regional and says nothing about 80540.
United States
West
Copyright, National Association of Realtors. Reprinted with permission. Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED publishes a rolling 13-month window for these series.
Tiers computed from Lotvox parcel and deed substrate through Aug 25 (10 later months withheld as partially loaded). Sample floor 10 sales per tier; below it a figure is drawn from the county or metro and labelled, or left blank. Multi-parcel bulk deeds and duplicate records are excluded.
Boulder County contextmacro · jobs · debt · migration
ZIP score grades housing; county score adds macro distress (jobs, debt, poverty). They answer different questions.
This ZIP code crosses county lines. Property data shows Boulder (70.8%) and Larimer (29.2%). County metrics below are shown separately for each county.
Boulder (70.8%)
Larimer (29.2%)
ZIP 80540→2 counties
12-Month Direction
-10Moderate Deterioration
Confidence
100%
DeterioratingStableImproving
BuildersLens Market Intelligence
Market Score
37· Weak
Market Score grades housing-market conditions (affordability, valuation, supply). The county Healthy/Moderate/Distressed badge measures economic distress (jobs, debt, poverty) — the two can read differently.
Payment Burden27
43.6%
severe
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Buy vs Rent0
2.274x
rent advantage
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Valuation9
+62.3%
overvalued
Source: Lotvox comps · Updated 2026-05-15
Supply/Demand11
3.5 mo
balanced
Source: Lotvox MLS · Updated 2026-05-15
Insurance Risk
38/100
moderate
Source: FEMA/NFIP · Updated 2026-04
County distress indicators
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Economic indicators are mixed relative to comparable U.S. counties.
Unemployment Rate
4.0%
CO 3.8%US 4.4%
Near national averages
Source: BLS LAUS · 2026-0667d ago
Poverty Rate
11.0%
CO 9.4%US 12.6%
Near national averages
Median Household Income
$102,772
CO $94,510US $82,006
Higher than most U.S. counties
Cost of Living (RPP)
112.5
CO 111.8US 100.3
Higher than many comparable counties
Home Value (ZHVI)$713,638
County data: BLS, Census ACS, CDC, FBI UCR, Federal Reserve, USDA · Coverage derived from property records · Counties with <2% coverage excluded as likely data errors
