Metro Denver Average Home Price Rises Again

Last month, the average price of a detached home in metro Denver fell for the first time since January, offering hope of a long-awaited temperature decrease for the area's blazing-hot housing market. But despite numerous metrics that suggest cooling should be happening, the just-released July market trends report from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors shows that the detached-home average rose again last month — and the median price did, too.

The survey focuses on greater Denver, an eleven-county zone that includes the core metro counties plus contiguous areas such as Gilpin, Clear Creek, Park and Elbert. During June, the average price for a detached home hit $810,415, up from the adjusted figure of $803,835 in May. The median price is also incrementally higher: $673,873 in June versus $670,000 in May.

This bump defies plenty of other DMAR stats. For example, the 5,674 new detached-home listings in June represents a substantial 14.28 percent hike from the 4,965 put on sale in May. Moreover, the 3,520 pending sales and 3,574 transactions considered closed tumbled by 16.07 percent and 13.15 percent, respectively, on a month-over-month basis — indications that the feverish demand that's marked the local real estate scene for the majority of 2022 may finally have started to wane.

A graphic from the report, which runs from January 2008 to April 2022, puts the situation in historical 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 some back-and-forth slippage: $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 descending 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 March hit $793,836, which seemed like a stunning amount at the time. But April's figure left it in the dust, and the rise continues.

The median price for a detached home in June 2021 was $600,000 — lower than this month's total by 12.31 percent.

The average number of days that detached homes lingered on the Multiple Listings Service, or MLS, was ten in June, as compared to nine in May, and the median stay ratcheted from four days in May to five in June. Meanwhile, the typical price at closing in June was 102.96 percent — better than the tweaked 105.27 percent figure for May, but not exactly an indication that bidding wars are a thing of the past.

Nonetheless, Andrew Abrams, a local realtor who chairs the DMAR market trends committee, doesn't see price upswings continuing indefinitely. "The increase in supply will eventually impact pricing, days in the MLS and the relationship between buyers and sellers, which have negatively impacted buyers’ purchasing power," he maintains. "The stock market, inflation and cryptocurrency have all taken a hit in the last few months. Housing will eventually be a victim to the economy as a whole, but just how much is yet to be seen. It is realistic to see days in the MLS, currently sitting at a historic low of four, increase in the coming months."

For now, though, significant relief for homebuyers is at least one more month away. Click to read the Denver Metro Association of Realtors' July 2022 Market Trends Report.