The Denver Real Estate Market is on Fire!

Not only has the metropolitan Denver area recovered from the nationwide plunge, it has reached levels above the peak years of 2006 and 2007. In the latest Case-Shiller report, Denver and Dallas were the first markets where prices were higher than the go-go days of easy money in the mid-2000s. Case-Shiller tracks Denver and 19 other major markets. Its latest report was for May. The record-setting trend continued through July, according to more current data from Metrolist.


July 2013 Denver Metropolitan Real Estate Sales RecapJuly real estate sales broke several records
- uncharacteristic for a month that is traditionally the second slowest 4-week sales period of the year, only behind the last two weeks of December and first two weeks of January.

• There were 32,302 closings in the first seven months of the year, the most ever for that time period.

• The 21.9 percent increase in closings on a year-to-date basis from 2012 to 2013, is the largest ever recorded for that time period.

• There were 7,406 homes placed under contract in July, a record not only for July, but the second best month ever. It was only bested by the 7,420 contracts written in June 2013.

• The 41.7 percent increase in under contracts in July 2013 from July 2012, is the largest year-over-year percentage increase ever recorded for the first seven months of the year.

• The 6,104 closings in July is an all-time record, marking the first time that more than 6,000 homes have closed in one month.

• In the first seven months of the year, buyers paid $9.8 billion for homes, the most ever for that time period.

• The 34.4 percent year-over-year jump in dollar volume is the largest on record for that time period.

The Kentwood Marketing Director reported this month that the Denver-area housing market hit bottom in 2011 and has been on an upward climb for the past two years. Every month since January 2012, there has been an increase in the number of homes placed under contract on a year-over-year basis. In other words, the market has enjoyed 19 months of consecutive improvements on a year-over-year basis.

With all of this data supporting a bull market in Denver housing, does that mean the market is becoming overheated and faces another bubble? No one knows for sure, of course. But probably not.

The Market also stayed hot for million-dollar homes in July:

Through July 2013, buyers purchased $634,261,685 in single-family Million Dollar properties comprised of 417 transactions compared to $445,085,260 in sales and 291 transactions in 2012. This resulted in an increase of 43.3% in transactions and an increase of 42.5% in volume respectively. Year to date in 2013 the highest sold property was $8,691,000 (April) which is 15.9% more than the 2012 highest priced sale of $7,500,000 (July). The number of days on the market is now 13.9% less at 180 days versus 209 days in 2012.