DENVER — Whether you're in the market for a new home or your first home, it's tough to find a place to live in Denver right now.
Not only have home prices been on the rise for several years, but inventory — the number of homes listed for sale — is historically low.
Take February, for example. There were slightly more than 4,000 active listings across the metro area that month, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors, and while that's an improvement over January's record low, the average for the month is closer to 14,000.
RELATED: Report: Denver tied with Seattle for fewest available homes for sale
The lack of housing begs the question — where CAN a buyer find a decent number of homes for sale in the metro area?
Though one might assume that homes are especially hard to come by within the city center, data provided by DMAR show that several of the zip codes with the largest numbers of active listings as of March 26 were close to downtown Denver, including 80202, 80204 and 80211.
The zip code with the largest number of homes for sale was 80016 in Aurora.
Areas with the worst shortages of available homes seem to be clustered to the west of I-25 — Englewood, Westminster and Arvada, for example.
The map below shows the 10 zip codes with the most and the fewest homes listed for sale:
Zip codes with the most active listings:
80016/Aurora: 209
80108/Castle Rock: 207
80134/Parker: 176
80602/Brighton: 115
80204/Denver: 111
80202/Denver: 94
80210/Denver: 90
80211/Denver: 89
80022/Commerce City: 89
80007/Arvada: 86
Zip codes with the fewest active listings:
80235/Sedalia: 5
80260/Northglenn: 6
80021/Broomfield: 7
80216/Denver: 8
80236/Englewood: 10
80002/Arvada: 11
80239/Montbello: 11
80030/Westminster: 12
80110/Englewood: 13
80130/Highlands Ranch: 13