Canon City Real Estate

The Last Affordable Mountain Town In Colorado?

The first thing we noticed was that in Canon City real estate was still affordable. Then we saw the climate statistics. An average high of 50 degrees Fahrenheit in January? That sounded a whole lot better than 20 degree winters we put up with in Michigan. We started making plans for a home shopping trip.

We were actually coming from Tucson, Arizona. We had been living there for about 18 months. Real estate in Tucson was getting a little crazy (it has since started dropping in price), and the town is a bit hot in the summer, to say the least. Michigan and Montana, our previous two homes, were too cold in the winter. Canon City looked to be just right.

And it is. We were impressed a soon as we came into town. On the internet it looked dry and dusty, but it was green and pretty in reality. Some one needs to take some better photographs for their web sites. We found a hotel, and the next day looked at a few houses. A day later we bought the house below.

It is technically a one bedroom (we have no kids, pets or large screen televisions), but we use the carpeted, enclosed back porch as a bedroom too. There is a little "house" in back that had a workshop in one room and a bedroom/storage room set up in the other. There is also a root cellar, and a brick garage that we made into our personal disco. The enclosed front porch has large screen windows that make it a great place to sit on summer evenings, and the irrigation system keeps the grass green.

More about Canon City Real Estate

We love Canon City, and not just for the cheap real estate. It is great to be in a nice climate and be so close to so many beautiful areas. The town itself is still small (29,000?), but there are snowy mountain ranges an hour away, canyons and hiking trails minutes away, and the Arkansas River goes right through town. The Royal Gorge Bridge, the highest suspension bridge in the world, is eight miles west of town. At least a dozen outfits run rafting trips through the gorge's class 4 and 5 rapids.

The town is a bit quiet, but it is growing. In the fourteen months we have lived here, we have seen a few businesses fail in or near downtown, but we have also seen ten new ones start. A great brew pub and restaurant just opened this summer, as well as a mountaineering shop and a kayak store. The big box stores are here as well - Home Depot, WalMart Supercenter, and and Office Depot (opening soon). The downtown area seems much livelier this summer than last, and there are festivals and other events throughout the year.

Home Prices In Canon City

As I write this (August 2007), there are eight ready-to-live-in homes for under $100,000 listed on Realtor.com, and probably more for sale by owner. Three of these are three-bedroom homes. The cheapest at the moment is a two bedroom home for $67,000. Prices do vary widely here, though. A decent three bedroom home in the Dawson Ranch subdivision, for example, will cost you at least $230,000.

Fixer-Uppers

If you like the idea of building sweat equity, this is the town for you. The supply of fixer-uppers is likely to last for many years. At the time we first came to town there were a couple under $50,000, and such cheap handy-man specials still show up regularly. With a growing population and jobs coming to the area, Canon City has escaped the real estate downturn that other areas have experienced.

2009 Update

We have moved to a bigger home. We managed to sell our first Canon City home for more than we paid, which was nice considering we bought at perhaps the top of the market (2006), paying the full asking price, and sold at what is hopefully the bottom of the market (2009). Canon City never was hit as bad as most areas of the country. In fact, it seems that the low end didn't drop at all, even while homes priced $200,000 and up probably lost 15% of their value in three years.

There are quite a few more foreclosed homes for sale. This has meant that although prices aren't down much, you have more negotiating power with these foreclosures. The slow sales times have also meant that there quite a few more homes for sale under $100,000 than there were a few years ago. With population growth expected for many years to come, prices have probably gone as low as they will get (but who can guess the timing on these things?).

2011 Update

At the moment there are more than 100 homes listed for less than $125,000, as well as some old houses in need of work for less than $50,000. Prices seem to be falling still.

2012 Update: There are fewer listings at the moment, and anything under $70,00 or so looks to be a fixer-upper. The latest updates for all towns are here: Cheapest Homes in 2012.

Note: There are five new additions to our cheap towns on the newest page: Cheap Towns