DENVER — With an overall slowdown in the real estate market nationwide, the Denver area remains red hot, but the cooling fans have been turned up to full blast, returning some aspects of the market to pre-pandemic levels.
These findings were revealed in the latest Market Trends Housing Report and analysis from the Colorado Association of REALTORS (CAR) released Wednesday.
The report finds that many of the indicators that experts use to gauge the temperature of a market — including home prices and percent of list price received — have seen a steep decline over the past year in the seven-county Denver metro area and statewide.
In fact, Matt Leprino with CAR said the Denver area real estate market has dropped to pre-pandemic levels with a $40,000 drop in the median cost of a home and inventory jumping up statewide.
“Inventories going up prices are decreasing--if you can believe it, not just slowing the rate of ascension,” Leprino said. “Like I said, 12.6% (drop in home prices) in Denver County alone. And statewide overall, just over 4% decrease from March of last year.”
This is good news for home buyers, but not necessarily those wanting to sell. The time a home listing sits unsold on the market increased to an average of 46 days in March 2023, an increase of 200%. And sellers need to prepare for a lower than asking price for their home, Leprino said.
"So it looks like sellers are being realistic and what they're [listing] their homes for," he said. "They're actually selling right around what they're listing for."
The percent of list price received was 99.5% for single-family homes in the Denver area in March. That's a 5.9% drop from March 2022, when sellers, on average, were getting 105.7% of the listing price.
Leprino said 2023 is turning out to be a good year for home buyers. He said those who may have been turned away by the cutthroat nature of the market in previous years, may want to take a second look.
"If you're a buyer and you didn't want to buy last year, because things are too red hot, well, this is a good year to look at it," he said. "It looks like a giant eraser was put over 2021 and 2022. At least right now, it looks like all those price increases are simply being erased."
