Flood gates open on metro Denver housing inventory in June
The number of homes and condos available for sale in metro Denver surged by nearly two-thirds between May and June and nearly twice as many properties are now on the market compared to a year ago, according to a monthly update from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.
Buyers, who have struggled with a record-low number of listings since pandemic lockdown orders ended more than two years ago, had four times the selection available to them at the end of June as they did at the start of the year — 6,057 vs. 1,477.
But that might prove small consolation. Inventories are rising because significantly higher mortgage rates and higher home prices have priced many would-be home purchasers out of the market.
“The stock market, inflation and cryptocurrency have all taken a hit in the last few months. Housing will eventually be a victim to the economy as a whole, but just how much is yet to be seen,” said Andrew Abrams, chairman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee, in comments accompanying the report.
Abrams added it is only a matter of time before the extra inventory will impact prices, how long it takes to sell a home and the lopsided balance of power between sellers and buyers.
Listings are spending an average of 10 days on the market, about the same as last year. And the median price of a single-family home sold in June was still rising, up 0.58% on the month and 12.3% on the year, to $673,873. The median price of a condo sold last month was $430,0000, flat with May and up 13.5% from a year earlier.
A separate report from real estate brokerage Redfin found that 46.9% of metro Denver home sellers had to lower their initial listing price in May, the third-highest ratio in the country after Provo, Utah, and Tacoma, Wash. The number of homes and condos sold in June in metro Denver fell 12.4% from May and is down 23.6% from June 2021, according to DMAR.
While the number of active listings has nearly doubled from the record-low for June of 3,122 reached last year, counts remain far below the 15,747 listings averaged for the month between 1985 and 2021. And the supply situation has a long way to reach the record high for June of 31,900 listings set in 2006 when the housing bubble was going bust.
