More good news out of "Fort Fun", aka Fort Collins, home of Colorado State University and subject of my www.FortCollinsInvestments.com website. Business 2.0, Money Magazine's online business portal, has named Fort Collins one of the top ten cities in America for real estate investing over the next five years.
Predicting a five year appreciation of 28%, the Business 2.0 article states:
.
Fort Collins appears time and again on the media's "best" lists - best place to live, best place to retire, best place to raise a family, best "dream" town, even the best place to "reinvent your life."
"Great schools, low crime, good jobs in a high-tech economy," Money Magazine crowed earlier last year when it named Fort Collins its No. 1 small city. And talk about a lifestyle play: The city is an outdoorsman's fantasy come to life, boasting 40 parks within the city limits, more than 60 miles of hiking and biking trails, three city-owned golf courses, and easy access to whitewater rafting, kayaking, fishing, and skiing.
The presence of Colorado State University makes it a college town, to boot. Add to all this that Colorado has been a housing price laggard in recent years, with "relatively anemic" price appreciation, according to economist Andrew Leventis at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. With tech companies fleeing high-priced Silicon Valley, bringing California émigrés with them, now looks like a good time to buy.
I was up in Fort Collins with an investor earlier today, and the white snow draped on the foothills behind Horsetooth Reservoir under a bright, blue sky made for an extraordinary site. We stopped for a quick bite at CooperSmith's and toured about a dozen homes on a typically crisp, sunny winter's day. There's a lot to love about Fort Collins, and it looks like the secret is getting out.
