Blog > Downtown Denver is in Trouble (Here's Why)
Downtown Denver Condo Crisis: What's Actually Happening Now
Downtown Denver's condo market sits at 14 months of inventory, with 319 active listings and only 26 closings per month. It's a deep buyer's market, and here's exactly why.
Key Takeaways
- 319 condos sit active downtown with only 37 under contract right now
- 14 months of inventory makes downtown Denver a strong buyer's market
- Median condo price is up roughly 10% year over year to $580,000
- Renting beats buying by about 25% monthly at the $300K price point
- Sellers must price aggressively and present well or sit 9 to 16 months
Video Chapters
How many condos are for sale in downtown Denver right now?
Downtown Denver currently has 319 active condo listings with just 37 under contract.
That ratio tells the whole story. Across the full Denver metro, we close about 4,000 homes a month, so 300 active listings sounds small until you compare it to actual buyer activity downtown.
In the last six months, only 159 condos closed in this downtown footprint. That's 26 properties absorbed per month against 319 sitting active. Do the math and you're looking at roughly 14 months of inventory.
A balanced market runs 4 to 6 months of inventory. Anything above that tilts toward buyers. At 14 months, we're not tilting, we're fully in a buyer's market. Last September we sat at about 8 months. So in one year, inventory pressure has nearly doubled while buyer demand has softened. That's the supply and demand reality driving every condo conversation downtown right now.
Are downtown Denver condo prices going up or down?
Median downtown condo prices are up roughly 10%, from $517,000 in September 2024 to about $580,000 in September 2025.
On paper that looks like appreciation. In practice, it's a tale of many markets. Downtown Denver isn't one market, it's literally building by building. Some buildings are moving units. Others have had the same three listings sitting for a year.
If you own a condo currently listed downtown, the median price stat probably doesn't match what you're feeling. You're watching neighbors drop prices and seeing showings dry up. The reason the median ticked up is that more activity is happening in the higher price tiers where cash buyers and retirees aren't as rate-sensitive.
Meanwhile, closed sales dropped from 32 in September 2024 to 24 in September 2025. That's a 25% drop in transaction volume. Fewer sales plus more listings equals pricing pressure that doesn't always show up in the median number.
Why are cheaper Denver condos harder to sell than expensive ones?
At the $300,000 price point, renting is about 25% cheaper than buying that same unit.
Here's the math on a typical $300,000 two-bedroom downtown condo. With 5% down (realistic for that buyer pool), you're borrowing around $275,000. Add HOA dues of $400 to $600 a month, taxes, and insurance, and your monthly payment lands between $2,800 and $3,200.
That same unit rents for $2,000 to $2,400 a month in good condition. The buyer pool did the math and walked away. Can't blame them.
Meanwhile, the $800,000 to $1 million condo market behaves differently. More cash offers, more retirees, and interest rates barely factor into the decision. That inventory moves faster and holds value better. The result is a flipped script. The cheaper condos people assume should fly off the shelf are actually the slowest movers downtown.
What's happening with Denver HOA fees and special assessments?
One downtown building this year was hit with a $30,000 special assessment per unit across 100 units for plumbing updates.
HOA costs are climbing fast and insurance is the main driver. Coverage for older buildings has gotten expensive, and a lot of these downtown buildings are aging into major capital expenses at the same time.
That $30,000 special assessment I mentioned wasn't optional. The building needed massive plumbing updates before any unit could realistically sell. Buyers walking in are now asking for reserve studies, recent assessment history, and projected dues increases before they'll even write an offer.
This is part of why inventory is piling up. Buyers have choice, and any building with a pending assessment or insurance issue gets crossed off fast. If you own in a building with deferred maintenance or thin reserves, your unit competes with cleaner buildings that don't carry that baggage. Pricing has to reflect it or the unit sits.
Is now a good time to buy a condo in downtown Denver?
Buyers this year have closed deals $250,000 below same-building comps from 2024.
If you're a buyer with a real timeline, this is one of the better windows downtown Denver has offered in years. When others are fearful, you should be greedy. I've watched clients get massive seller concessions, full inspection credits, and price drops that wouldn't have been possible 18 months ago.
You have time. You can see 6 to 10 properties before deciding. You can submit an offer with contingencies and actually get them honored. You can ask for closing cost help, rate buydowns, or post-close occupancy and get a yes.
The trade-off is you need to be honest about whether buying makes sense versus renting at your price point. At sub-$400K downtown, rent often wins. At $600K and up where you'd be staying long-term, the leverage you have right now is real. Pick a building with healthy reserves and a clean assessment history.
What should I do if I need to sell my downtown Denver condo?
Sellers with 12 competing units in their building need to price in the bottom third or expect 9 to 16 months on market.
If you have to sell in the next 30 days, three things matter. Price, presentation, and competition awareness. Look at every active listing in your building and the surrounding blocks. If 12 units are listed between $600,000 and $800,000, you need to be at the lower end and look better than the rest.
Buyers are seeing 90% properties (units that hit 90% of their criteria) and still hesitating because there's another showing tomorrow. That's a flipped market from two years ago when buyers would write on 70% properties just to win.
I've watched units cycle on and off the market for over a year. Each relisting resets nothing in buyers' eyes because they remember the address. If you can wait, wait. If you can't, get aggressive on price and condition from day one. Half-measures get punished right now.
Full Video Transcript
Full transcript from this video, organized by chapter. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the video.
Market Overview & Supply
[0:00] It's been a little bit over a year since I recorded this video about the condo crisis in Denver, and I wanted to fill you in on what's actually going on. Is the market getting better? Is it getting worse? What can you do about it? Is it a good time to buy? Is a good time to sell? And we're just going to lay it all out there with all of the stats because last year it was fairly alarming. So, if you're a condo owner in Denver, you're going to want to listen up. And again, my name's Alex. I talk about real estate. I talk about lots of things real estate. And if you want to as well, you can call me, you can text me, or you can scan this QR code, get my weekly email, and get the best information that you can get on the Denver real estate market. Okay, so getting right into it, let's just look at supply and demand.
[0:41] That's what all markets are driven off of. And starting with how many properties are for sale, we're looking at active currently that you can buy. Doesn't matter price point, condos only. And this is what I'm considering the downtown area. And just within this nook here today, currently active on the market, we have 319 for sale. Okay, fine. That means nothing. 300 for sale. We sell 4,000 homes a month in the whole Denver metro area. So that's 10% of the inventory that we close every month.
[1:12] It's active for sale. Doesn't sound like anything. We got to benchmark that off of something. So we're going to look at how many are currently under contract. 37, right? 300 plus for sale, 37 under contract. Not quite 10% of everything that's active is under contract. All right. Is that good, bad? Well, we'll take a look here. And closed in the last 6 months is 159. So, divided that by 6 months, that's 26 properties a month are being absorbed and closed. Okay, that's where we're going to start. So, let's back this up a little bit and we're going to start with a bigger picture for how many active listings have been in this same exact map. Okay, these are the stats straight from the MLS for September is the last uh month with data. We've got 330 as of September 2024. We had 263 compared to over 300. So 60 more 30% more inventory than last year approximately for sale. Okay. Well, how does that compare? If we're closing that many more, maybe it's not such a big deal. So let's look at how many are actually selling, right? And it looks like we're trending downwards. So in September 2024, 32 closed compared to 24. So eight less. But at this rate, that's 25% difference. So, let's look at the next stat, the median close price, right?
Inventory Trends Year-over-Year
Price Analysis by Neighborhood
[2:46] That's what everybody wants to know. Whether how many are selling or not, doesn't matter as long as prices are, you know, staying flat or going up. And this is where it gets a little bit tricky because we have the tail of many, many markets in the Denver market. Everything's neighborhood by neighborhood. And in downtown, it's literally building by building depending on how many are actively for sale. So we can see in September 2025 we were approximately 580,000 as our median sales price and in September we were 517,000.
[3:16] So I can make the case that we are actually up in value by 60,000 almost 10% in median close price. But if your place is on the market right now and you got a condo in downtown you know that's not what it feels like. Tail of two markets, right? You own a condo at 300,000. you own a condo at 900,000, right? Which one is going to sell faster? Which one has more buyers? You know, our instincts would say, "Well, more people could afford 300,000 than 900,000." Duh. But here's what I'm going to say. You're actually wrong about that. Uh, so the place for sale at 300,000, two-bedroom, two bath condo, that's,000 square feet, right? Um, HOA payments are high, four, five, $600 a month for not many amenities. older building uh painting a picture here in downtown Denver, right? Cool kind of spot, close to bars, restaurants, all that good stuff. But you could rent that place for 2,000 a month, $2,200 a month, good condition, $2,400 a month, right?
Buyer Preferences & Affordability
[4:17] You were to buy that place putting 5% down because that's realistically the buyer pool for that price range. You're going to be borrowing, you know, $275,000 plus on this place. after the HOA dues, taxes, all that stuff, your monthly payment is going to be $2,800 a month, $3,000 a month, $3,200 a month, depending on how much you're borrowing versus how much you're putting down and the price point, all that stuff. So, what we're seeing is that it's actually cheaper, much cheaper by about 25% to rent than it is to buy. So, that buyer pool has made the decision, nope, not going to buy. Doesn't make sense.
[4:52] Can't say that I blame them. where if you're buying an 8 $900,000 million condo, uh you're more flexibility, more of the offers are at a cash level at that point, more retirees, things like that, totally different buyer pool where interest rates don't affect them nearly as much. And so, a lot more of that inventory is actually moving and a bit more desirable than the stuff in the low uh price points in the Denver area. And then here's your big number on what's driving the prices right now. And the days on market, which is purely supply and demand and how many months of inventory, which we're sitting at 14 currently within this map that I drew. A balanced market is said to be between 4 to 6 months of inventory. Anything over that is more of an extreme buyers market. And we're sitting at 14 currently. And compared to last year, we were sitting at approximately eight months. So, compared how many buyers there are to sellers, we have 50% more inventory than we saw last year. So, what's going on with the condo crisis here in downtown Denver? Well, it's continuing. Um, HOAs are getting more expensive as insurance becomes more and more of an issue. A lot of these buildings are aging and they're needing large special assessments. uh with some clients I had earlier this year. We were looking at properties and we saw one unit in particular that needed up to I think it was a $30,000 special assessment per unit and there were 100 units in this building. They had massive plumbing updates that they needed to do in order to sell any of these properties. So, when you have your choices, you're looking for a condo up to $800,000, and you've got dozens that you can pick from, and some are really well updated, and some are not. Uh, some are motivated to sell and have been aggressively dropping their price, and some have not, and some have special assessments and some have not. you can narrow that list of options down from 50 to five real fast and know, hey, any one of these five will do, which is a different dichotomy than what we saw a couple of years ago where nothing was for sale. And so you go in and it's the only one that's going to work for us, honey, and if we don't make an offer on it now, it's going to be gone by tomorrow, so we better move. And you made a decision based on what was available. Now we have buyers having a lack of decision because there's too many things for sale. And so, you know, going out with my buyers, you know, the listing agents are calling me, hey, how's it going? You provided good feedback and blah blah blah. And yeah, they're interested and this is great, but there's six more that they want to see over the next couple of days. And one of those six might be better, might be nicer, might fit their needs more.
Suburb vs Downtown Dynamics
HOA Concerns & Special Assessments
Buyer Selection Process
[7:39] And then they just kind of wait on things and go, "Well, they're all pretty nice." So, these are like 90% uh properties, meaning you're never going to find 100% that fits everything you're looking for. Price, condition, location, everything. But 80% is usually enough to get people to submit an offer. And now we're seeing 90% properties and they're still going, well, we're going to kind of wait and watch. So, what to do with this information? If you're on the buy side, uh it's a great time. I've had many clients this year take huge advantage of what's going on in downtown Denver because opportunity doesn't present itself all the time.
Strategy for Sellers
[8:16] When others are fearful, you should be greedy. When others are greedy, you should be fearful. And I've had several buyers really take advantage of that this year. Get big seller concessions, work price drops, property that was for sale, you know, last year for $200,000 more, getting it under, you know, for Yeah. literally $250,000 less this year compared to last year within the same building. Um, you know, working around their timelines, being able to think on things, having inspection objections, and knowing that the seller is going to have to work with you on almost all the items. Uh, it's an interesting scenario.
[8:51] If you're on the sell site, you have to look the best, you have to present the best, and you have to be the best priced to be able to sell within the next 30 days. You have to be priced. If you've got 12 units for sale in your building, ranging from 600 to 800,000, you better be in the lower part of that price range and you better be looking good if you're going to need to sell. Other than that, you might be sitting on the market for 9, 12, 16 months, which I've seen many of these go off the market, on the market, off the market, on the market just through this vicious cycle. So again, if you have any questions, just want to talk, shoot the [ __ ] My name's Alex. I talk about real estate all day, every day. Here's my phone number. Call me, text me. I actually answer or just get my weekly email to stay literally up todate on the best information that you can get about the Denver market. And if you're considering moving here and wondering what's going on, I really want you to watch this video because there's a whole lot of misconceptions about Denver that I think you need to
Frequently Asked Questions
How many months of condo inventory does downtown Denver have right now?
Downtown Denver currently has about 14 months of condo inventory, based on 319 active listings and roughly 26 closings per month over the last six months. A balanced market runs 4 to 6 months, so this is a deep buyer's market favoring people purchasing rather than selling.
Did downtown Denver condo prices go up in 2025?
The median closed price rose from about $517,000 in September 2024 to roughly $580,000 in September 2025, an increase of nearly 10%. However, this number is skewed by activity in higher price tiers. Individual buildings and lower-priced units are often seeing flat or declining values.
Why is it cheaper to rent than buy a condo in downtown Denver?
At the $300,000 price point, a typical buyer puts 5% down and ends up with a monthly payment of $2,800 to $3,200 after HOA, taxes, and insurance. That same unit rents for $2,000 to $2,400, making renting roughly 25% cheaper each month.
What's causing the Denver condo HOA crisis?
Rising insurance costs on aging buildings and deferred maintenance are the two biggest drivers. Many downtown buildings are facing large special assessments for plumbing, roofing, and structural work. One building this year required a $30,000 per-unit assessment across 100 units before sales could continue.
Should I buy a downtown Denver condo right now?
If you plan to stay 5 to 7 years and you're shopping at $600,000 or above, the buyer leverage right now is excellent. You can negotiate price drops, concessions, and inspection credits that weren't possible recently. Below $400,000, run the rent-versus-buy math carefully first.
How long are condos sitting on the market in downtown Denver?
Days on market have climbed significantly, with many units sitting 9 to 16 months or cycling on and off the market multiple times. Well-priced, well-presented units in healthy buildings still sell within 60 days, but anything overpriced or with pending assessments can sit indefinitely.
What price should I list my downtown Denver condo at?
Look at every active and recently sold unit in your building and immediate area. If you need to sell in the next 30 days, price in the bottom third of comparable active listings. Buyers have too many choices to consider an aspirational price, no matter how nice your unit is.
Thinking about buying or selling in Denver?
Call or text (303) 552-4804 for a no-pressure conversation about your situation.
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