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Market Overview & Concern

[0:00] The last time there were this many homes for sale in Denver was 2011. Denver housing market is hit with an explosion of listings. How far could home prices fall? And my favorite, 9% drop in home values in Denver metro in the next year. Real estate company CEO predicts. Holy cow, with these headlines out there, no wonder y'all are freaking out. It is an interesting market to say the least. But when we're surrounded by this stuff that's all super clickbaity, like what are we supposed to think? How much weight are we supposed to put in this stuff? Well, that's what I'm here to help shed some light on. And if you're new here, my name's Alex Salani. I've been a local Denver agent since 2010.

[0:40] And if you're looking for someone to help shed some light on what is going on and what feels like a really wacky market, cuz let's be real, we've only been in the same market since 2010, which for a lot of us is the only market that we've ever understood. But if you want to get a hold of me, you can call, text me, or scan that QR code, and you can set up a time to chat with me. So, we're going to dig right into these numbers here because it is the beginning of July, which means June numbers are out and historically June is the highest month for appreciation, median home prices in the entire Denver metro area.

[1:15] So, we're going to take a look at that. We're going to see what inventory is doing. How is the biggest investment of your life going? Is it going up in value? Is it going down in value? Is it a good time to buy? Is it a bad time to buy? And we're just going to break it all down. And starting with the numbers because that's what drives all of my decisions. That's what drives all of my guidance. Well, we're just going to go straight into what the inventory is doing because supply and demand 101, this is what drives an entire market.

Current Listing Metrics

[1:43] When there's more houses for sale, when there's more buyers, prices decrease. When there's more buyers than there are houses, prices increase. So, starting off with the amount of new listings, we're going to benchmark this off the last handful of years to kind of see what is normal and what's not. Starting with new listings. Okay, this is how many new properties have come on the market in June, right? We were at 10,435.

[2:07] That is up 5% from year-over-year. So, a few hundred more compared to last June. Not a big significant jump, right? Uh, it's not like we have 20,000 homes for sale, another thousand came on, like another four or 500 came on than did the previous year. Active listings. All right, this is what's driving all of these headlines right now. 25,482 active listings on the market. That's how many houses you can choose from to buy, condos, town homes, all that, which is up. This is a big number. 29.9%.

[2:42] more than 30% right over year over year which is up hundreds of percent from years ago. What does this look like on a bigger time frame? So if we zoom out 15 years which as far as this chart goes back uh we can see I mean the last time we had this many houses on the market was 2011, right? And we were still coming out of the 2008 correction which kind of bottomed in 2010 to 2012 depending on the market you were in. uh and it felt like there was a ton on the market. We're getting close there, but how have prices been affected? Because at the end of the day, that's all anybody cares about is if like you're making money or losing money by owning your house and how that goes. So, we're going to cover pending here. Let's go back down to five years. So, we are up 9% year-over-year for how many have gone under contract right now. We're going to touch on this here in a moment, too, because uh there's a lot of stuff falling out of contract. So, let's take the last 30 days. Actually, let's take the last 60 days and compare from what went under contract to what actually closed cuz 95% of all deals closed within 30 days. Okay? So, if we came back and looked at May, so pending listings, we had basically 7,000 in May, uh, that went under contract, but how many closed in June? Well, we had 6,600 closed in June. So, that's actually a pretty solid number. Only about 300 less closed than went under contract. What was the month before? April, we had 6,800 under contract. And in April we closed or in May we closed 7,000. So these are the hyperish months that we've been in. And so the numbers are actually looking pretty solid. Now year-over-year we've sold basically 5% more than we did last year. But you can see, you know, last year was it's roughly the same, right? 2024, 2023 or these are the same feeling sort of years with, you know, how many properties have been closing. Uh but again going back to new listings more and more people are listing their house less have been closing than they did in 2020 21 and 22 and so this inventory number is rising and you know being up 5% 6600 versus last year where were we at 6,300 I mean looking back in 2022 we were at 8,500 that closed in June right uh that's pretty big shift and people are still feeling the repercussions of Now, days in MLS, u just like to look at the average here, 42. So, up just a tick from May. Uh, but nothing to write home about. January peaked out at 67, so a little over two months on average on the market. But compared to last year, we're up 20%. You know, last June, we had 35 days on the market. And it doesn't sound like a lot, but if you got your house on the market right now, you know, it feels like forever, right? And I can say all day long that the average time to be on the market is between 4 to 8 weeks. And when week number two hits and we've only had one showing, it's like the sky is falling. Like that's the reality. When you're in it, it's different than when you're just looking at numbers on a piece of paper. Okay. Month supply. This is the metric out there, right, that a lot of people pay attention to. How many months of supply do we have? Uh and what's a buyer and a sellers market? So a sellers market is south of four months, right? Anything under four months of inventory is considered a sellers market. Anything four to 6 months is considered a balanced market.

Days on Market Analysis

[6:17] Anything over 6 months is a buyer market. Man, I don't know. We hit four months and I feel like we're in a buyer market, right? Um because we haven't been in this market since I mean let's zoom out again. Have we been in there in the last 15 years? Yeah. So back in 2012, right? Where we had this much month supply of inventory. So it feels painful. It's an adjustment period to being more of a balanced market. Uh, and yeah, you can tell out there, like I said, if you're in the mood to buy, if you're in the mood to sell, and you're out there in the market right now, you know that you have choices as a buyer, um, and you know, you can negotiate, and you know, you could throw in an offer 10% under asking, and you're not going to offend anyone these days, right? Um, because that's just what's happening out there. Now, showings to go under contract. We're sitting at about 12.7 showings before your house goes under contract. If you have more showings than that, you're probably overpriced. And then the amount of showings we're getting per listing are 4.2. So, we're getting roughly four.

[7:20] One a week, right, is how many showings you're getting on average. Uh, and it's taking over 12 showings to go under contract. Now, these are all averages, right? Um, and it it does paint, you know, an interesting picture though of becoming balanced. Now, the problem is is when you go from such an extreme sellers market, which let's be fair, we've had that for the last decade, right? We've gone up by I don't know how many hundreds of percent, 250% over the last decade, uh, in Denver alone. Most of the country is very much the same there. And then you go to a period where it's like this this jolting like, oh god, it's going to take more work and effort to get my house under contract.

[8:00] And holy crap, that one down the street sold for seven and a quarter last year. Now this one next to me just sold at 675. And Ike, there's eight other houses for sale in the neighborhood. And holy cow, we haven't seen that. And you have in your mind that 7 and a quarter is what something sold for. That's what you should get, right? and then you go on the market at 675 and like your neighbor did and maybe that doesn't do it or you don't see that they asked for a 10 $15,000 sales concession and so maybe in reality it's 650 maybe it's a little bit less if you're on a busier street or not a fully desirable house. Um and that's kind of what we're facing. So, those are purely the numbers, but I want to kind of reference these articles here because this is what you see in the media from trusted news sources that you've trusted your whole life. But what are they talking about? Like, how much weight should you actually put into this stuff?

[8:57] Um, okay, let's go back to it here and start with the first one. Last time there were this many homes for sale in Denver was 2011. Totally true. We just looked at those numbers. Uh, you know, it is what it is. and and the number in Denver is about 12,000. So we've been looking at Denver metro, which is, you know, everything from Broomfield down to Castle Pines, you know, from Littleton, Centennial up to Westminster, Thornton, North Glenn. Um, and you know, he's saying, I do think buyers are in really good position right now. Um, and she's part of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. And the reasoning why they're saying there's so many homes for sales right now is that it's getting harder to sell a home. It is not harder to sell a home. Like, we're seeing more closings this year than we did last year. And the only reason why it's harder is because prices haven't accelerated.

Buyer Competition & Pricing

[9:52] That's all it is. If your house isn't selling, there's only one reason. Price. And you know how I know is because if you priced your house house at a dollar, would it sell? Yeah. If you priced your house at 50,000, would it sell? Yeah. 100,000? Probably. 200? Yeah. 300? And you're going to hit a number where all of a sudden you're like, 500? You're like, well, I don't know. Will it sell? But it would sell at 400? Yeah, totally.

[10:15] It all comes down to dollars and how you're positioned against the competition. It's no longer about what sold in the last 6 to 12 months. It's about what your competition has looked like, how you're priced in comparison, because there might only be one to two buyers in your entire neighborhood this month. So, how do you make sure that yours is the house out of 12 homes for sale that they pick? And it comes down to features and price in comparison to those features, right? Uh that's all it is. So, getting on a realer.com article, Denver housing market is hit with an explosion of listings. How far could home prices fall? Well, let's see. Where was the explosion of listings? Uh, I mean, I don't know about you guys. Let's go back 15 years. This is what I always love looking at. It's a heartbeat, ladies and gentlemen. The lowest months are usually December and January for the amount of new listings to hit the market. And the peak usually is about June, right? every single year.

Seasonal Trends & Predictions

[11:18] December, uh June, uh December, uh May, like you can set your clock to this stuff, right? Um and this year is no different, right? We had the least amount of new listings in December and the most amount in May. Like it is what it is. Maybe we had a little bit more. Um but what's actually risen is the amount of active listings, right? That's what they um that's what they should be talking about. Now, this one, I want to call this person out. I will call him out personally because I followed him for years and he's a load of hot garbage. Um 9% drop in home values in Denver metro in the next year. Real estate company CEO predicts. Okay, so first of all, this real estate company is actually not a real estate company.

[12:05] He is a software company that sells a program that kind of helps show where values might be dropping or where some opportunities lie. Uh is reventure data, right? And I am going to call him out. Probably going to get myself into trouble here. So, let's just go back because I'm going to show you what people are seeing. All right, here we go. my buddy over at Reventure Consulting, and he's not really my buddy. Uh, he has no idea who I am. So, all of his videos, right, we're going to watch this trend here. This is organized by the latest video. California, it's here. Housing market just flipped. 2025 correction, deflation just flipped. US debt, why so many people are leaving Texas, second stage of the housing crash, it's happening. Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash. Okay, let's go to the oldest, right? And some of his older stuff is legit and um Okay, so once he starts getting into the whole bubble crash thing. Oh, San Francisco re real estate decline. This was back in 2021. Um I don't know how much they're up since then, but I'm going to guess it's somewhere around 20 to 30%. The COVID recession, we all know what happened there. US 2021 housing bubble, 2021 real estate growth, uh 2021 housing bubble, Seattle real estate 2021 buy or prop tech collapse. Uh US 2021 housing bubble bubble bubble bubble crash crash crash crash crash. He's a perma bear. If you don't know what a perma bear is, uh they're very common out there and they just always call for a market crash and they're right once every 20 years and then they say I told you so. Um and so one of my favorite quotes is figures can't lie but liars can figure. Right?

[14:02] And what we're seeing uh to give you the final piece of information that you actually want, close price, median close price for the month of June. Sorry to delay it here, is 580,000. So we went up by five grand month over month, which I I'm a little bit surprised. I got five on the market right now, four or five under contract at the current time. Um, and so if you told me that, hey, we were actually up in median price, I go, okay, that's interesting to see. Like, we're slow on showings. Um, we are up year-over-year by 2%, right? Denver proper is up like 1 one and a half%. Um, so I'll be interested to see what happens here in July. But the numbers here are painting a picture that like, hey, it's just taken longer to sell. And you know, but you're going to get your price eventually. Um, but then there's the whole seller concession side of things. So, one piece that the public does not see, which I think is criminal, is a seller concession, which a buyer can use to buy down a race. Someone offers you 600,000 on your home, but they ask for a $15,000 seller concession. your home shows is being sold for 600,000, but it doesn't show the 15K then is dropped off to give the buyer in a seller concession. So really, your home sold for 685, which would be a solid 2.5% less than what is actually shown on public records. Uh developers use this tactic all the time. It's part of the deal of real estate. Um and it kind of fudges the numbers a little bit. So now, where do we go from here? what's my crystal ball saying, which is all you really want to know, and I'll be the first to tell you I'm wrong half the time. Uh, but I still think that's pretty good in comparison to a lot of people out there.

[15:47] Um, so I think I think with what I'm seeing and feeling, uh, buyers are seeing a lot of these headlines of wanting to put out crazy offers, right? uh sellers are getting this feeling and if they've been delaying the last year or two, they're still trying to get ahead of the curve to get their house on the market and sell it now before they feel like maybe the bottom is going to fall out. Um I think Denver here we're a little more insulated than most of the country. I think places like Florida, Arizona, Vegas get hit much much faster and much more extreme. Uh we have a lot of incredible industries from tech industries um to the contracting world is still super strong. Um we control a lot of the country's water like we're elevated. We're not on the ocean. We don't have hurricanes, alligators, or earthquakes, right? Um there's there's a lot going for Colorado that I love in general. Our property taxes are very low. Uh I get flack about that all the time about taxes being so high. the taxes are so high because your value has doubled over the last five, six years.

[16:49] Um, that's why they're high. It's not high percentage-wise. You made a lot more money in equity. And so, yeah, you do have to pay now 4 grand on your $800,000 house. Uh, go ask someone in Texas what their property taxes are like. Uh, I promise you they're going to be floored by that number, right? Um so over the next six months right towards as we get towards the end of the year I think we see more declines in housing prices and I think we see a 5 to 10% adjustment like we do every single year right and to prove that cuz I know you're going oh god we're going to drop 10% in price yeah we are right so last year let's start with 2023 right interest rates already high we went from 570 down to 530 Right. So that's a $40,000 drop. So that's, you know, over 5%.

Price Adjustments & Foreclosures

[17:40] We're in that 7% range. Right. Last year we went from 579 down to 555, 5%ish range. You know, in 2022 we went from 590 all the way down to 516. That's a 15% drop in a period of 4 to 6 months. That is not uncommon, ladies and gentlemen. But here's the rub is that you know what happens now is that we have this pool of inventory that will be on the market till about August, right? September. And then people will start taking their houses off the market as we get to the holidays, right? If it didn't sell, it'll go expired and that house won't be back on the market until springtime of next year when they potentially try again. A lot of sellers don't have to sell right now. They're digging their heels in. They're holding their price firm. And if they don't sell, they just don't sell. Oh well, we'll rent it out or we'll just stay here or whatever. Like, they're not hurting. They've got a 3% interest rate and they're paying $1,400 a month for their $700 to a million dollar home. And it is what it is. Most of the listings we see on the market are from life-changing events, right? Someone passing away, houses are in an estate sale, uh foreclosure, um starting but not fully in foreclosure because they still have a ton of equity.

[18:52] So the bank has no threat of actually taking it away. Um loss of a job, things like that. Uh that's what we're typically seeing come to the market that is actually selling right now. Uh because they have to sell, right? If you don't have to sell, you can sit on the market, not change your price, and it's not the end of the world. So I think we see a 5 to 10% adjustment just like we do every year. If we continue to rise in inventory starting next year, Mike, I think we continue to stay what looks like flat on the surface. And I'm going to I'm I'm going to address this whole medium price being at the same level or even a little bit up compared to what you're feeling on the streets because I can show you a neighborhood right now that is down 20% year-over-year. And I can show you one that's up 20% year-over-year. It is very micro markets. Different property types, different locations around the city have different amounts of inventory.

Market Segmentation & Strategy

[19:45] Therefore, prices are kind of going nutso. Um, and what I think is happening with this medium price being held high is that if a bunch of houses are selling for north of a million dollars and not as many are selling at 500 or below, it's going to pull that median price up with it. Right? median is better than average uh on how it's calculated for a few reasons, but that will also get pulled up as more expensive houses are selling, right? And the first time home buyer pool has gotten the crap kicked out of them, right? It's so hard to buy a 300 $400,000 place, especially if there's an HOA in it because you could rent it for 50% less than what you could buy it for right now in most areas, right? But if interest rates were to drop 1 to 2% tomorrow, boom, they would be on like gang busters and we would run out of inventory in the next two to three months and we would be back to 25 to 50 grand over asking price. So I it's kind of a funky game to play. You can't time the market. If you're in the market to buy, it is a decent time to buy. You have some options. You have some negotiating room. Uh and you know, you can get in without feeling horrible about things and having to compete against a bunch of people. But you do have the interest rates to compete with, right? So you're still going to be paying a monthly nut that's pretty big.

[21:08] If you're on the sell side, you got to price it right. You got to look decent and you got to be willing to work with the buyer that you have in front of you. So again, if you need help navigating this market, feel free reach out, scan the QR code, give me a call, shoot me a text message. I do actually answer my phone and would love to talk with you about it. And you know, in the meantime, if you're wondering where people are actually coming to within this state, I want you to watch this video. Right?

[21:34] This is about areas that have been continually going up in value even over the last 12 to 18 months.