Home prices have risen in Denver much faster than incomes. The S&P Case Shiller home price index shows home values are up 46 percent in the metro in the last five years, and average hourly wages are up 16 percent in that same time, according to the state labor department.

Brad Nelson kind of sees both sides of it. The Wisconsin native lived in Colorado before he took a job in California. The hotel chain manager has also recently moved back to Colorado. He was renting a small apartment south of San Francisco.

“The prices out there are outrageous,” Nelson said. “We had a 600 square foot loft. So, not even like a bedroom, we didn’t have a bedroom door, and it was like over $3,000 a month.”

Nelson rented out his Denver home while he was in California. He and his wife had planned to sell it and put a down payment on a home in the Bay Area, taking advantage of how much his Denver home had appreciated.

“Which we thought was like, ‘that was great,’” Nelson said. But they “couldn’t get anything in San Francisco within an hour and a half of the city.”

They came back to Denver and Nelson even took a pay cut to move, because the city is such a popular location within his company.

That brings us back to Ashley Stoddard, who wondered who was filling up all real estate in Colorado. Here’s the twist. She only needed to look into the mirror as she came here from California after getting priced out of Los Angeles. She eventually found a Boulder condo and admits she’s actually part of the reason housing is more expensive here.

“Oh yeah, I understand that,” Stoddard said. “But also my income is not advancing in such a way that I will ever get out from under paying 50 percent of my income for a mortgage.”

Her father advises that she shouldn’t pay more than 25 percent of her income on housing. But Stoddard just laughs when he says this because really, there’s no choice.

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