With the Olympics stoking the spirit of competition, we took a look at how Colorado stacks up against the other states when it comes to real estate prices.

Our impartial judge for the competition is the Federal Housing Finance Authority who tracks close to 300 real estate markets all over the country.

For this competition we are looking at home price appreciation over the last five years. Simply, how much have prices gone up for each state?

And the winner is… (not Colorado)

The winner is Nevada with a 68% increase in the last five years.

Here’s the top 5:

1. Nevada 68%

2. Arizona 57%

3. California 54%

4. Florida 53%

5. Colorado 48%

Here’s the deal about this list- other than Colorado, these are all the states that were hit hardest by the real estate downturn in 2008 & 2009. These states are still clawing their way out of the hole that was created. While Colorado continues to show a more steady pattern without the wild swings seen in other places.