Home sales and price records were set all across Colorado in July

Home-buying records are snapping like dry tree branches all across Colorado this summer, not just in metro Denver, as a mismatch between supply and demand pushes sales prices higher and drains the inventory of homes available for sale.

The Colorado Association of Realtors reports that buyers purchased a monthly record of 10,771 single-family homes in July across the state, a 15.7% gain from June and a 21% gain from July 2019. About 6,500 of those sales came in the seven-county Denver metro area, which was up 20.4% over the year in July sales.

Sellers listed a respectable 11,417 new single-family properties statewide. But it wasn't enough to sate buyers, who put 11,420 homes under contract. That represents a 37.5% increase from July 2019, and is the third month running where buyers in Colorado have put more than 10,000 single-family homes under contract in a given month.

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Statewide, the median price of a single-family home sold rose 8.6% from a year earlier to a record $443,925, while the median sold price in the seven-county Denver metro area rose almost 9% to $489,500.

Demand is so intense and supply so limited that Colorado Springs-area Realtor Jay Gupta compared the situation to the frenzy that emptied grocery store shelves of toilet paper, meat and other essentials in the early days of the pandemic. Buyers snapped up 1,978 single-family and patio homes during the month in the Colorado Springs area, causing the inventory of homes for sale to shrink 37%.

"Buyers waited on an hour-by-hour basis for the new listings to show up, then competed to win the bidding wars," he said in comments accompanying the report.

Some of the record sale numbers represent pent-up demand from March and April, when in-person showings were limited and people hunkered down. But Gupta noted that year-to-date sales in Colorado Springs are 9% higher than last year, despite a still-active pandemic and unemployment rates surpassing those seen in the Great Recession.

One explanation is that buyers are anxious to lock in 30-year mortgage rates below 3%, which have improved affordability. And the pandemic itself has pushed some buyers off the fence, motivating urban residents to pursue more suburban or rural locations with room to stretch.

In Summit County, the number of residential properties put under contract went from 210 last year to 387 this July, said Leah Canfield, a broker associate with the Mountain Homes Group, a Breckenridge-based affiliate of Coldwell Bankers. She adds the surge in home sales above $1 million was even more remarkable, going from 63 under contract last July to 135 this July.

"This flurry of new activity is being driven by the luxury sector of our resort market, and our luxury market is seeing a climb like it never has before," she said.

Most buyers fit the mold of "urban flight" and many were considering a purchase already. They pulled the trigger after COVID-19 became an issue, Canfield said. Front Range buyers from Denver are active in the county, but most of the $2 million-plus properties are going to out-of-state buyers from Texas, Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma, New York and New Jersey.

Sales are up sharply and the available inventory falling like a rock in Durango, Crested Butte, Glenwood Springs, Mesa County, Pagosa Springs, Steamboat Springs, Telluride and Vail, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors.

Tribune Content Agency
Housing markets Purchase Home prices Housing inventory Colorado
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