Denver Area Home Sale Average Hits $825,000

Like a showstopper from Wicked, the housing market in Denver is defying gravity.

The just-released market trends report from the Denver Metro Realtors Association reveals a new record average home price for a detached home in the metro area in April: a skosh over $825,000. That's an increase of more than $30,000 since March, and well over $100,000 above the average at this time last year. And the median price exceeded $684,000, also a six-figure rise from twelve months earlier.

What makes these figures even more astonishing is that the number of active listings and new listings for April were significantly higher on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. But this increase in supply still wasn't enough to match the demand from home buyers.

The DMAR figures reveal that 5,023 detached homes hit the market in April, up from 4,332 a month earlier. That represents a 15.95 percent bump from March and an 8.82 percent hike over the previous April. Closed sales went from 3,312 in March (a figure revised up by more than 200 from the initial estimate) to 3,452 in April, a 4.23 percent month-over-month change, and a 12.12 percent leap from last year.

A graphic from the report, which runs from January 2008 to April 2022, puts the situation in perspective. The yellow line corresponds to active listings at the end of each month, while the blue line shows sales that closed over the same periods:
The average cost of a detached home in Denver surpassed $700,000 for the first time in May 2021, en route to a record-setting $728,385 in June. That was followed by a slight slide: $687,176 in July, $685,832 in August, $688,629 in September and $684,700 in October.

But in both November and December, the average again broke the $700,000 barrier, landing at $703,847 and $704,716, respectively, before slipping to $688,127 in January. This drop proved short-lived, however: The February 2022 average, adjusted to $738,472, was the highest ever recorded by DMAR, and the newly tweaked number for March hit $793,836, which seemed like a stunning amount at the time. But April's $825,073 left it in the dust.

The average sales price in metro Denver in April 2021 was $696,320, according to DMAR.

The median price for a detached home in the metro area went from $635,200 in February to $660,000 in March to $684,550 in April — an almost $50,000 spike in two months. In April 2021, it was $582,000.

The average number of days that detached-home listings lasted in April was nine, down from eleven in March; the median length of time remained four days. Meanwhile, the typical price at closing was 107.29 percent of list, compared to 106.67 percent the previous month — evidence that topping the competition has gotten even more expensive.

Despite these figures, realtor Andrew Abrams, chair of the DMAR market trends committee, sees signs that the Denver market may come back to earth soon. "While buyers may be thinking they overpaid if they bought two months ago, this is not the case," he states. "They likely got a slightly lower interest rate, and the market is continuing to rise, just not as fast. In the chaos of the recent market, buyers had been waiving their inspections, doing full appraisal gaps and even offering to make their earnest money non-refundable before getting an inspection. Now we're shifting to a more responsible market. There will still be bidding wars, appraisal gaps and limited inspection items on future properties, but the frequency of those will be less."

For now, though, the sky remains the limit. Click to read the Denver Metro Association of Realtors' May 2022 market trends report.