The Current State of Denver Real Estate - February 22, 2023

Local & National Housing Trends

The national housing market has trended down for the 12th straight month with the Denver housing market, right on its heals.

From Reuters:

“U.S. existing home sales dropped to the lowest level in more than 12 years in January, but the pace of decline slowed, raising cautious optimism that the housing market slump could be close to reaching a bottom. Existing home sales fell 0.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.00 million units last month, the lowest level since October 2010, when the nation was grappling with the foreclosure crisis. That marked the 12th straight monthly decline in sales, the longest such stretch since 1999.

The housing market has been the biggest casualty of the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy tightening. Residential investment has contracted for seven straight quarters, the longest such stretch since 2009.  Government data last week showed single-family home building and permits for future home construction declining in January.”

My personal experience in the Denver Housing market, is that new home communities are still selling at a pretty good clip, mostly due to the fact that builders such as Lennar and others, are offering interest rate incentives at discounted rates around 4.875%. Combine that with discounted pricing and they are still able to keep homes moving in their communities. Elsewhere, for resales, sales are down year over by over 30% and inventory numbers are still well below where they were before the Fed decided to raise interest rates in an attempt to keep inflation in check.

The real estate industry is feeling the pinch in all aspects from the lending side (down 90%), to the title companies, to the real estate side. The housing market is what keeps the US economy churning as it plays such a vital role downstream to so many other industries and marketplaces.

For a snapshot of January’s housing stats courtesy of SMDRA, Click Here.