DMAR Market Trends, September 2019

Are we teetering on the fulcrum of the real estate market in the Denver Metro area? Or is the economy go­ing to be a bully that jumps off and lets the teeter-totter drop? Let’s look at the big picture: new listings, un­der contracts and days on market were up in August. The number of homes sold, average and median sold prices and dollar volume sold were down, but so were interest rates. It isn’t 2018, but it isn’t 2008, either.

In 2019, buyers and sellers are not having the same experience their neighbors did last year. In the first half of 2018, sellers were taking offers over the weekend and selecting the best one in the stack on Monday. This year, sellers are making price adjustments as they try and find the right price point to entice buyers to make an offer. Sellers also have to keep their homes picked up for longer as the median days on market has jumped up 27.27 percent from July to August and up a significant 57.14 percent year to date. While the per­centage is significant, it is actually only up from seven to 11 days year over year.

Many buyers have appreciated this slightly slower paced market. They have an option to compare a number of homes on the same day, instead of one home at a time as they trickle onto the market throughout the month. They’ve even been able to do some negotiating as the close-to-list-price ratio dropped to 99.36 percent year to date compared to above 100 percent at this point in the past few years. The lower interest rates also improved their buying power allowing some to move up in price.

Buyers have several things going their way, but maybe because school was back in session or people were trying to squeeze in one last summer vacation, fewer people found what they were looking for in August. The number of sold homes was down 10.91 percent month over month, and down 0.72 percent year to date.

Sellers should still be skipping happily on the real estate playground. Even though they aren’t selling their homes as quickly, they are still getting more money than they would have last year. Average and median sold prices dropped a bit month over month, but were up 2.22 percent and 1.45 percent respectively year to date.

We saw some typical seasonal changes in August, but will we teeter or will we totter as we head toward the last quarter of the year’? I’m not sure, but for now, both buyers and sellers should enjoy the balance. There are not many games where everyone can win, but real estate is one where we can all be happy.

~Jill Schafer, Chair of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and Denver real estate agent