What’s slowing this market down? Neither snow, nor election, nor football…
Welcome to Market Monday, where we review the Denver real estate market and break it down into clear and informative bites! If you have any specific questions or areas of the market you’re curious about, reach out and I will do my best to get you an answer.
We’re well into November, and the Denver housing market is still on fire. 🔥 I feel like a broken record - inventory is still down, demand is still high, and odds of selling are through the roof. For a breakdown of these and more, read on!
First of all - inventory. Can our active listings go any lower? We asked that last month, and they indeed dropped again.
Take a look at the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ Market Overview for October. In looking at all residential listings for 11 Metro Denver counties, active units are down 9% from September, and 43.6% from October 2019! Average close price is up to $561,999 ($625,100 for detached and $393,733 for attached). Closed transactions, while down from September, are still up quite a bit from October 2019 - likely only an result of low inventory and not indicative of reduced demand.
More on inventory: per Megan Aller’s data, which covers 7 Metro Denver counties, detached single family (DSF) listings are down 66.9% from the October average 2013-2019. That means we only have 1,946 DSF listings on the market. 🤯That low number, combined with high buyer demand, comes out to only 0.5 months supply of DSF inventory. The months supply of inventory measurement means that, if no new listings came on the market, and with the current level of demand, we would run out of listings in 2 weeks. 2 weeks!
Even though inventory was way down, DSF pending and closed transactions in October 2020 were way up - 25.5% and 33.1% respectively from the October 2013-2019 average. All of the buyer demand is eating up the inventory as soon as it appears!
Attached single family (ASF - condos, townhomes, duplexes, etc) is seeing somewhat less of a decline in inventory - only a 4.4% drop from the October 2013-2019 average (1,897 units). While the ASF numbers may not be as dramatic as DSF, we’re still generally seeing the same trends - fewer days on market, more pending and closed transactions, more properties going under contract quickly, and higher odds of selling.
Speaking of odds of selling, which Megan Aller measures as “a calculation of all homes available for sale vs those that resulted in a buyer and seller agreeing to terms of a contract in a specific month.” We are still in the midst of some of the highest odds of selling that we’ve seen - both this year and compared to past years! There is currently a 69.1% overall chance of selling - I like those odds! To break it down: detached homes have a 77.9% chance of selling (up 28.5% from Oct ‘13-’19); attached 60.3% (up 6.6%). If you are in a position to sell, now is still the best time we’ve seen.
If you are thinking about buying (or out in the market trying to buy right now), you may look at this and feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or hopeless. I hear you, I feel you, and I’m with you! Even with this low inventory, we still may start to see the buyer pool fatigue and fall away just a bit - hopefully leaving just a little opportunity for you. If you want a guide and advocate to help you seize that opportunity, I would love to be of service. Email, call, message, text… I’m here and I want to help you with a strategy to win.
Questions or Comments? Leave them below or contact me at the button!
Numbers and stats from Megan Aller, First American Title and Denver Metro Association of Realtors.