'extreme seller’s market' for denver real estate
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By Dennis Huspeni | Published on June 3, 2021
What's being called an “extreme seller’s market” continued in May for Denver's residential real estate, with the average sales price continuing to smash records, a pitiful amount of inventory for a market the size of Denver’s, and days a home stays on the market dwindling, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.
“With competition continuing across all price ranges and static inventory scarce, it is likely records will continue to be broken in this hot market,” according to the report released Thursday.
The average closing price for detached single family homes soared to $700,559, up 29% from May 2020. For all residential homes (condos and single family), the average closing price stood at $623,279 – up 26% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, the inventory of for-sale homes continues to dwindle, with only 2,075 active listings at the end of May. That’s down 20% from April, and a decline of 71% from May 2020’s inventory level.
Adding to all that is the declining average days on market for a home. That number dropped to 11 days, down 15% from April’s level and 54% from the average days on the market a year ago. For perspective, a single-family home buyer in May of 2019 had a median 20 days to tour a home and make an offer. That plummeted to six days in May.
And “buyer’s fatigue” is rampant, said Andrew Abrams, chair of the realtor association’s Market Trends Committee.
“Like a marathon, buyer fatigue has slowed people down but has not stopped anyone from crossing the finish line,” Abrams said in a statement. “Listings continue to slowly hit the market, while buyers continue to gobble up properties as soon as they do. Just this weekend, I wrote one offer in the $400,000 price range that had 40 offers and one in the $1 million price point that had double digit offers.”
Some other interesting facts from May’s market report:
There were 5,322 closings in the residential market, down slightly from 5,536 in April, but up almost 50% from May 2020 when there were 3,578 closings.
Sales volume soared 88% over May 2020, to $3.32 billion.
The average closing price hit 105.2% of the asking price in May, up from 104.6% in April and from May 2020’s level of 99.4%.
With all that, buyers will need plenty of “resilience and strength to overcome this tough seller’s market,” Abrams said.