Existing home sales in metro Denver area drop 28.91% in August.

Existing home sales in metro Denver area drop 28.91% from August to September and 20.24% from last September. The biggest decrease was single family homes priced over $500,000 which dropped 33% compared to the month prior. Normally in September you see a decrease in inventory; however, in September, the inventory continued to move higher, totaling 8,807 active listings for single family homes and condos, up 16.10% year over year. Since the record peak highs this past May and June, home prices dropped nearly 5%.

Year to date average sold price for single family homes stood at $523,224, up 9.16% from last year, while the median sold price stood at $445,000, up 8.54%. As usual, the condo market continues to outperform the single family home prices, with an average sold price of $350,766, representing an 11.38% increase over 2017. The median price of condos sold also increased by 12.34% to $299,900.

Months of inventory for single family homes increased nearly 38.69% to 2.33 months in September compared to 1.68 months the month prior, while months of inventory for condos increased to 1.93 months compared to 1.48 months in August. Year to date a total of 42,990 homes have sold, down 3.04% from 2017.

The luxury market which homes that priced over $1 million or greater, plummeted 44.44% in September from the previous month and down 4.17% year over year. The closed dollar volume in September in the luxury segment was approximately $173 million, down 45.02% from the previous month, and down 6.9% year over year.

Furthermore, year to date, September had the lowest median and average days on market on record and the sales volume was still up 27.28% compared to last year. While existing home sales are down, the stats are very similar to September 2017, and could be indicating this is just a seasonal slow down.

Interesting read

Downtown Denver is booming: According to the latest report from Downtown Denver Partnership:

  • The total metro area Denver labor force is nearing almost 2 million
  • Daily growth in the metro is approximately 100 people
  • Tech employment has grown 74% since 2010 in downtown
  • More than 10,000 people are employed by high tech companies in downtown
  • Employment is at an all-time high at 133,478, a 2.5% year over year increase

Nation comparison:

  • Fourth in population growth, at 13.1%
  • Fifth in educated millennial populations, at 46%
  • Ninth in asking rent for office, at $27.02 per square foot
  • Fourth in traffic congestion, at 36 hours in traffic during peak

Denver is one of the fastest growing major metros in U.S. for weekly wages:In Denver, average hourly earnings rose by 3.94% to $30.04, and average weekly earnings went up by 4.13% to $993.93 according to a study from Paychex. Denver is ranked No. 3 for average hourly earnings growth and also No. 3 for average weekly earnings growth among the 20 largest metro areas in the United States.