Every year, Gallup surveys Americans to determine their choice for the best long-term investment. Respondents are given a choice between real estate, stocks/mutual funds, gold, savings accounts/CDs, or bonds.

For the fourth year in a row, Real Estate has come out on top as the best long-term investment! This year’s results showed that 34% of Americans chose real estate, followed by stocks at 26%. The full results are shown in the chart below.

The study makes it a point to draw attention to the contrast of the sentiment over the last four years compared to that of 2011-2012, when gold took the top slot with 34% of the votes. Real estate and stocks took second and third place, respectively, while still in recovery from the Great Recession.

Bottom Line

As the real estate market has recovered, so has the belief of the American people in the stability of housing as a long-term investment.

Nearly 99 percent of homes in metro Denver have regained or surpassed the prices from their pre-recession peak, according to an analysis by Trulia that shows only a third of homes nationwide reaching the same mark.

The report, “The Housing Recovery That Wasn’t,” said the metro area’s recovery from a decade ago is the best among the 100 housing markets it examined.

Counties to the north, south and even east of Denver are showing strong recovery rates, while the rebound on the Western Slope is spottier, with median prices in most areas still below their old highs.

“In Colorado, home value recovery at the county level is split along the continental divide,” said Ralph McLaughlin, Trulia chief economist.

In metro Denver, home prices have shot up 50.5 percent from the pre-recession high of $237,071, the highest percentage gain of any of the 100 metros. That has allowed individual homes over time to regain their old highs.

But incomes in metro Denver are up only 20 percent since the end of the recession, making it harder for buyers to find affordable homes and pushing them further out in their search.

Colorado Springs was a fairly sleepy housing market until metro Denver home prices heated up in 2014 and 2015 and sent people south in search of affordability.

Trulia found that 93.4 percent of Colorado Springs homes are above their prior peak, which was the sixth-best recovery rate of the 100 metros examined. The median home value in Colorado Springs in March was $247,181 compared to the prior peak of $206,882.

Out of 396 ZIP codes in Colorado that Trulia looked at, 23 had no homes below the pre-recession high, and another 83 showed recovery rates between 99 percent and 100 percent.