Life Style Denver by Gretchen Faber

May 2009 Denver Real Estate Market Statistics

The market statistics for residential real estate in Denver came out while I was on vacation.  A Disney Cruise with 11 family members is a fabulous way to kick off the summer!  Luckily, our family plays together nicely.

When I returned, I learned that resales of existing homes increased again month-over-month.  This is the fourth consecutive month that number of sold properties increased. We’ve seen the bottom, it would appear.

While we may have seen the bottom, we’re still sitting on the floor.  70% of the homes sold were priced under $300,000. That signals a market pick-up in the lower price ranges, but we’re only just beginning to see houses in higher price points getting offers.

Today, I processed all of the office files that were piled up on my desk waiting for my return. In that pile were a few sales between $1mm and $1.5mm. That has been a rare occurrence since early 2008.

It is nice to see the average sold price creeping back up. April to May it increased over 4%.  The high was in 2006 at $303,000.  We also aren’t adding a tremendous amount of new inventory. I was hopeful that the number of active listings would stay steady through the spring to give us the chance to sell off the inventory we already have.  That’s another strong indicator that the market is much healthier than 6 months ago.

Deals are tough to keep together. Real estate agents are working 10 times harder to get transactions to closings.  Things seem to come apart at inspection and appraisal much more often than they used to.

Sellers – consider pre-inspecting their home before putting it on the market. Then, get the major safety and habitability issues taken care of before a buyer makes an offer.

Buyers – ask to see the sold comparables in the neighborhood surrounding the house you want to make an offer on. That way, you can make an educated offer and avoid appraisal issues.

Now is the time to jump in – you could be looking back over your shoulder in a year or two and wish you had gotten off the fence. Rates are surely going to continue to rise through the end of the year. We still have a great combination of low prices and low rates – a combination that will wind down as the recession ends.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Market Trends, Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. Minnesota MLS said at June 12th, 2009 at 12:08 am

   Nice post. I’ve been reading a lot of real estate blogs from different states lately and they are all saying that the market is picking up. We have not turned the corner though but we’re getting busy again.

   Cheers to us all!

   Minnesota MLS’s last blog post..Search for Homes $500k-up

2. LifeStyle Denver | June '09 Market Statistics said at July 6th, 2009 at 8:21 pm

   [...] you might be surprised to learn that we only added 119 new listings to our inventory since last month’s real estate statistics were released.  We added 121 new single family listings and we sold 2 more condominium listings [...]

3. John Rebchook said at July 8th, 2009 at 8:56 am

   Tom,

   I liked your insight that this is the fourth consecutive month of increased sales. And the Disney cruise sounded great.

   John Rebchook
   InsideRealEstateNews.com

   John Rebchook’s last blog post..Shadow creeping over Denver home market?

4. Gretchen said at July 8th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

   Hi John,
   Thanks for the comment. It means a lot from such an eminent real estate analyst.
   Gretchen

5. June Market Stats « Libby's Denver Blog said at July 9th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   [...] you might be surprised to learn that we only added 119 new listings to our inventory since last month’s real estate statistics were released. We added 121 new single family listings and we sold 2 more condominium listings than [...]

6. Newport Beach Reallty said at November 10th, 2009 at 11:44 pm

   It has really great achievement of Denver real estate that despite of global recession especially in April to May Denver real estate gain 4 % growth in its sold homes. Really Denver Real estate is really very strong fundamentally. Thanks for sharing.

   Newport Beach Reallty’s last blog post..Newport Beach Has Biggest Home Sale Gain in O.C. for September

7. LifeStyle Denver | Denver is Most Improved in U.S. Real Estate said at June 18th, 2010 at 8:22 pm

   [...] estate market statistics showed a slowdown in May from April, but we were still up over 20% from last year. That’s a dramatic gain in sales and [...]

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