Denver Metro Real Estate Cooling, But Don't Expect Prices To Chill
(CBS4) - Amelie Hubert stood and looked at the ads for homes outside a Denver real estate business. One she longed for in the Washington Park neighborhood bore a price of $800,000.
"That would be the perfect house for me," she said.
It was like the one her sister recently bought in Belgium for the equivalent of $250,000.
"She's really excited about the new house and I will never get a new house," she said.
Home prices in the Denver area have risen 41% since April of 2020, according to numbers out from real estate industry company Redfin. The Denver Metro Association of Realtors with its latest report out in May indicates home prices have finally slowed and average prices even fell by a quarter percentage point from the previous month's report. Showings have also fallen off with cooler demand. Average showings are now about a third of the number per property that they were from Super Bowl weekend.
"Market's still booming. It's just not the reckless frenzy that it was before. And in my opinion that's the great thing," said realtor Todd Crosbie of Liv Sotheby's International Realty.
He believes prices that were set artificially high are coming down.
"And what you're seeing in price reductions is a lot of people came on at this level," he indicated as too high, "Even though most stuff was selling here and now they're coming back down to where it should be."
Rising interest rates have cooled demand and some people are sitting on the sidelines. Also, there's less institutional buying that had driven prices up. And with more supply and moderating demand, prices are bound to be affected. What it's not, says Crosbie, is a reversal.
"Not at all. I don't think we've seen anything in terms of the turning of the market… We're going to see in the next few months, maybe in the next year or so, the market just becoming more realistic."
He still calls it a seller's market. But there are likely now fewer irrational offers that had come to plague real estate shopping.
"You actually have a moment to think about it. Before you couldn't even think about it. You were doing silly things like waiving inspections, waiving appraisals, waiving all your rights to get out if it's not the right property."
But Denver is still high. And too high for artist Amelie Hubert, who survives on a $50,000 salary.
"It just feels like it's so impossible that I'd rather spend my money doing things that will make me happy rather than trying to save for something that feels unrealistic at this point."