via Denverite

By Kyle Harris | Published on March 3, 2023

Denver home buyers are still facing a shortage of properties to purchase.

That’s according to the March market-trends report from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.

The 8,000-some-member real estate trade group pulls data based on real estate deals in the 11-county metro area: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin, Jefferson and Park counties.

Analysts expected home prices to drop in 2023. That isn’t happening.

Month-to-month, home prices rose. The median price of homes is $562,500, with houses at $600,000, and condos, duplexes and other attached units at $400,000.

While the trade organization still describes Denver-area real estate as a “sellers market,” many sellers considering moving from one home to the next are waiting to list their properties, hoping interest rates drop.

Sellers with homes on the market continue to drop prices to drum up offers among buyers who are choosier than they have been.

So what’s the inventory situation?

At the end of February, there were 3,778 homes listed on the market, more than twice what was available last year but down more than 8% from what was listed at the end of January.

But in what the trade organization describes as the “Luxury Market,” homes selling for more than $1 million saw a massive rise in February, with nearly 61% more on the market — 494 in total.

“The Luxury Market defied the headlines predicting a plummet in home prices, with both detached and attached homes enjoying significant appreciation month-over-month, as well as year-over-year,” noted realtor Colleen Covell, a member of the association’s Market Trends Committee.

The metro area continues to have a shortage of workforce housing.

In the “Classic Market,” homes selling from $300,000 to $500,000 saw an uptick in inventory. But those gains aren’t matching the demand.

The Classic Market boasts roughly a third of the real estate inventory and is what working people are most likely to be able to entertain buying (though even these prices are a stretch).

Despite a small increase in the number of available Classic Market homes, “the Metro area’s inventory shortage was felt most significantly in the Classic Market, with only 1.06 months worth of properties available to sell,” explained realtor Molly Polinkovsky, a member of the Market Trends Committee.