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Denver Housing Market Update: What April's Data Really Says
Denver's housing market hit 3.6 months of inventory in April with median closed prices at $570,000. Foreclosure headlines sound scary, but the real numbers tell a much calmer story.
What does Denver's supply and demand look like in April?
Denver had 11,000 new listings in April, down 3.6% from last year's 11,550.
Active listings sit at 21,300 compared to 21,678 last year, a 1.5% drop. That's notable because Denver has been piling on inventory for about four years straight. We're finally bucking that trend.
Zoom out to a 15-year view and you can see we spent seven or eight years at historically low inventory. Now we're flirting with what a balanced market actually looks like in Denver, but the accelerating climb in inventory has slowed down.
Pending listings jumped 11.2% year-over-year, with about 7,500 properties going under contract versus 6,700 last April. That's a meaningful jump. Closed listings came in at 6,600, down 0.9% from last year's 6,650. The next 30 to 60 days will show whether those strong pending numbers translate into stronger closings.
How long are Denver homes sitting on the market?
Days in MLS are up 11.8% on the median and 4.4% on the average, putting most homes at about six weeks to contract.
Month supply is the number I watch most. We're at 3.6 months of inventory. A balanced market runs four to six months, and I'd argue the real balance point is closer to four. So we're flirting with balanced, not flooded.
Close-price-to-list-price is sitting at 99%, meaning sellers are getting almost exactly what they ask if they price right. Showings per listing run about 5.5 per month, so just over one showing a week. It takes roughly nine showings to get a property under contract.
If you price your home correctly, you're still moving it in about six weeks at 99% of list. That's not a crashing market. That's a normalizing one where pricing strategy actually matters again.
What is Denver's median home price right now?
The Denver metro median closed price climbed from $540,000 to $570,000 so far in 2026, a jump north of 6%.
Year-over-year we're down just 0.9% across the metro. Denver proper sits at $590,000, down 2.5% from $605,000. But these monthly numbers swing wildly. Last year we dropped from $605K to $577K in a single month between April and May.
Breaking it down by city: Aurora is flat year-over-year. Parker is down 0.3%. Highlands Ranch is up 1.2%. Littleton is down 1.2%. Everyone is hovering flat-ish.
Price per square foot is down 3.4% on the median and 2.7% on the average. That number matters because first-time buyers are getting squeezed out by rates (about 50% of the buyer pool is sidelined), which skews median sale prices upward. Price per square foot balances that distortion and gives a cleaner read on actual value movement.
Are Denver foreclosure filings actually a problem?
Denver has logged 1,700 foreclosure filings in the first four months of 2026 across 1.3 million households.
The headlines screaming "foreclosures up 26% year-over-year" got my attention this morning, so I ran the math. Here's the context nobody includes.
Back in 2008, Denver had about 25,000 foreclosure filings over 12 months across roughly 1 million households. That's 1 in 40 homes. On a typical block of 100 houses, several neighbors lost their home.
Extrapolated out, 2026 is on pace for roughly 1 in 240 households, about 15% of 2008 levels. Weekly filings are running around 100, which was actually normal before 2020. We've been at such artificially low foreclosure numbers for years that any uptick produces a dramatic-sounding percentage.
Foreclosure activity is my first indicator for what the market does 6 to 12 months out. Right now it's signaling normal, not distressed.
Is Denver really leading the nation in price declines?
Denver isn't even in the top 10 metros for oversupply, sitting at 3.6 months of inventory versus Miami's 11.5 months.
The viral article making the rounds pulled February data and ran with the doom angle. Yes, Denver proper was down 2.5% year-over-year at that snapshot. But context matters.
We went from $550K to $595K between February and March, an 8% jump in 30 days. Nobody wrote that headline because it doesn't drive clicks.
Look at month supply nationally and the picture flips. Miami leads at 11.5 months. Austin is at 10.5. Orlando is at 8.2. Tampa is at 7.9. New York is at 7.7. Vegas, Riverside, Nashville, Jacksonville, and Atlanta round out the top 10 at around 7.1 months.
Denver at 3.6 months is closer to balanced than oversupplied. The metros actually in trouble have two to three times our inventory. We're not those markets, no matter what the headlines suggest.
What should Denver buyers and sellers do right now?
With 3.6 months of inventory and 99% close-to-list ratios, Denver is operating as a balanced market, not a crashing one.
For sellers, pricing strategy is everything right now. Homes priced correctly go under contract in about six weeks at 99% of list. Homes priced on hope sit. The buyer pool is smaller because rates have pushed roughly 50% of first-time buyers out, so you can't bank on a bidding war saving a bad price.
For buyers, this is the most negotiating room Denver has seen in years. Inspection objections, concessions, and rate buy-downs are all back on the table. The frenzy is gone.
Denver also has dozens of micro-markets. I can point you to neighborhoods up 20% year-over-year and others down 20%. The metro number doesn't tell your block's story. If you want to know what your specific neighborhood is doing, or you're relocating here, reach out and I'll pull the data for your situation.
Video Chapters
Full Video Transcript
Full transcript from this video, organized by chapter. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the video.
Foreclosure Filings Overview
[0:00] Foreclosure filings have at their highest levels since 2020. Denver home prices are declining faster than any other city in the US. And it's beginning of May, which is supposed to be our busiest, best time of year here. So, what's going on with your largest investment, your home? Well, we're going to dissect these headlines and take a look at what April did so you can understand what's going on with your largest investment, your home. Always starting off with looking at supply and demand here. This is going to really tell us our story. And we can see here in April we had a little bit over 11,000 new listings compared to last year where we had about 11,550.
Supply and New Listings
[0:32] So we're actually down 3.6% in new listings hitting the market. That's not a nothing burger number. Uh that's a bit less than we had last year, which then when you compile it with the number of active listings, we have 21,300 total compared to last year 21,678. So down 1.5% of active listings last year. we are bucking this trend of just having more and more and more inventory. Now, when we zoom this out to a 15-year timeline, we can see where we were at for, you know, a good seven, eight years here with just historically low numbers of inventory. And now we're flirting with what is a balanced market in Denver here, but we are not as accelerating at the same rate we have in the last about four years approximately. So then looking at the number of pending listings, all right, this is where the number changes a little bit. This is pretty significant. We're up 11.2% in properties going under contract to taking 7,500 approximately under contract where last year we took 6,700.
[1:35] I mean, that's up 11.2%. That's that's a fairly goodized number difference uh compared this year to last year. Closed listings. Now, this number is down.9%. And I'm going to be interested again to see what happens over the next 30 to 60 days because what's going under contract today is what's closing in 30 to 60 days. So that's what will reflect the closed listings. We closed 6600 approximately. Uh in April compared to last year it's 6650. And so we're going to see 7,000 was the number last year that we closed in May. And so far we've had 7,500 under contract in April. So I will be interested to see if this closed listings kind of bucks that trend here.
Days on Market Analysis
[2:15] days in MLS up 11.8% on the median. Uh average which is a little bit more accurate is up 4.4%. So on average it's taking about six weeks to go under contract if you're priced appropriately. Then if we look at the month supply, this is the real number. We are sitting at 3.6 months of inventory which it said a balanced market is four to six. I actually think it's more like that fourish range. Uh percentage of closed price to list price. Right now we're getting 99%. So just 1% off of your typical list price. Price per square footage is an interesting number to look at, which is down 3.4% on the median price. Average tells a good story here, too. I like it. Is down 2.7% for the medium price per square foot. So even if more expensive homes are selling than least expensive, which is the market that we're in, first-time home buyers are kind of getting squashed by these rates and is kicked out about 50% of the buyer pool. uh the more expensive homes are going to skew the median number up in general, but the price per square foot helps balance everything out. So, it is actually a really good number to look at. How many showings to go under contract? We're sitting at nine right now. And the showings per listing is about 5.5 a month. So, you're getting a little little over one showing per week.
Price and Inventory Metrics
[3:27] And then the good price, everybody wants to know what is the closed median price. And we have gone up significantly this year so far from 540 up to 570. That's a $30,000 increase. That's north of uh 6% or so so far this year if my math is right. And we're down.9% year-over-year. Now, this is for the entire Denver metro area. If you want to break it down into some of the bigger cities around here, Denver itself is down 2.5% down to 590 from 605. But we can see, I mean, we swing wildly every month. Last year we went from 605 down to 577 in May. You know, that's $30,000 drop. That's a 5% drop in one month. So, you know, we'll just pay attention to that and see what's going on here. But so far this year, we've been up up and away. If we want to pull up Aurora, take a look here. We're flat year-over-year. Uh let's take Parker, they're down.3%.
[4:26] Let's take Highlands Ranch, they're up 1.2%. And let's take Littleton. They're down 1.2% and everybody's just kind of hovering a little flattish, right? These interest rates are kind of, you know, kicking a lot of buyers out of the buyer pool. And so we're just kind of experiencing what balanced actually feels like. So now, what's to be made of these headlines out there because, you know, it's we're inundated with so much marketing these days that you have to be really extreme just to even get people's attention. And this one got my attention this morning. foreclosures filings hit their highest level since 2020. And so I decided to do the math uh because their next status were up 26% yearover-year.
[5:06] Well, that's great. If there was, you know, 100 foreclosures last year and you went up to 200 this year, which would still be nothing, you're up 100%. Are they doing the same thing here? Well, I decided to dig into the data and this is essentially what I found. Now, I can only speak for Denver itself. So, back in 2008 when we had the housing crash, we had 25,000 basically filings over the 12-month period for 2008 of foreclosures being filed. So far this year, and we're four months throughout the year, we've had just over 1,700 filings for foreclosures this year. when you kind of do the math here. So, when you compare how many houses are actually going into foreclosure based on the housing uh supply, we had essentially 1 million houses in the metro area of Denver back in 2008 with 25,000 going into foreclosure, which is one out of approximately 40 houses. To give you a real number, right on your street, you probably have 100 houses. Several of them went into foreclosure during 2008.
Foreclosure Comparison 2008 vs 2026
[6:04] So far in 2026, we have 1,700 foreclosure filings with 1.3 million households in total. So, we've grown by 300,000 households in, you know, almost 20 years, which is a crazy stat in itself. But when we compare that and we extrapolate out what all of 2026 will be based on our current numbers, that's basically one out of every 240 households will go into foreclosure in 2026, which is nothing. Okay? which is, you know, 15% 16% of what it was back in 2008. And then if you want to break this down on a weekly basis, because I do look at the foreclosure numbers a lot because it's my first indicator to know what the market's going to be doing over the next 6 to 12 months because foreclosures do take quite a bit of time. And back before 2020, I track this every single week. We would have anywhere from 50 to 100 households every single week hit the foreclosure status.
[6:56] So far in 2026, so far we have 100 per week that have gone into the foreclosure status. So we're just normal by all stretches of the imagination. However, for the last handful of years, we've just been at such low numbers that it's easy to write a headline that says, "Oh, we're up 25%. Oh, we're up 50% uh foreclosure filings year-over-year. Everybody takes that number, runs with it, and makes it sound like a huge deal to get you to click, to get you to watch." And that's just life. And then this article is making its way around recently too talking about how Denver leads the nation in price declines.
[7:29] Well, I decided to go up and look at what this information was. And this was back in February. So, if we want to look back in February to see what's going on and we're going to look at Denver proper because it's easier to segregate out a single city uh because there's more extremes of play since COVID happened. more people are leaving city centers and going further out to suburbs or even further out to places like Parker, uh, South Aurora, you know, north to Erie, stuff like that. And so, yeah, we are seeing a little bit more of an exodus out of most major metropolitaned areas.
Geographic Market Variations
[8:01] And so, looking at Denver, I mean, like we said before, we were down 2.5% year-over-year, but this isn't in a vacuum. You know, last year we were at 605, this year 590. And I've already shown you the wild swings that we can make every month. I mean, we went from 550 up to 595 in 1 month from February to March, but you guys didn't see the headline out there. Denver's up 8% in 30 days. Why? Because it doesn't get as much attention as the doom and gloom stuff out there. And when we look at the real barometer of how a market's doing, which is the month supply of inventory, which tells us what's going to be happening over the next 6 to 12 months, we can see Miami is number one with 11 and a half month supply of inventory.
[8:42] Austin at number two at 10 and a half months. Orlando 8.2, Tampa 7.9, New York 7.7, Vegas 7.4, Riverside, Nashville, Jacksonville, Atlanta. So we're not even in the top 10. And that's at 7.1 months of supply. And we're currently sitting at, what did I say? 3.6 months of inventory. So there you have it, folks. That's the number you should really be looking at and paying attention to to determine what's going to be going on in the next 6 months. And if you're wondering what your specific market is doing, because we have a lot of different micro markets in the Denver metro area. I can show you neighborhoods that are up 20% year-over-year. I can show you others that are down 20% year-over-year, and it really matters.
Market Outlook and Resources
[9:19] So, if you're wondering what your neighborhood is doing, just feel free, call me, text me, reach out. Uh, and if you are looking to move to the Denver metro area, you can download my relocation buyer guide. It's going to answer so many questions about the different areas that you can potentially look at. And now with AI being so front of mind with so many people, it is affecting the home buying process. So, if you're thinking about being in the market for a home anytime soon, you really need to watch this video because it might change how you go about the home buying process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Denver in a buyer's market or seller's market in 2026?
Denver is operating as a balanced market with 3.6 months of inventory. A traditional balanced range is four to six months, so we're close to the line. Buyers have more leverage than they've had in years, but well-priced homes still close in about six weeks at 99% of list.
Why are foreclosure headlines so misleading right now?
Foreclosure filings come off historically low pandemic-era levels, so even modest absolute increases produce huge percentage jumps. Denver is on pace for about 1 in 240 households filing in 2026 compared to 1 in 40 during 2008. Weekly filings of about 100 are actually normal pre-2020 numbers.
How much have Denver home prices dropped year over year?
The Denver metro median closed price is down just 0.9% year-over-year. Denver proper is down 2.5%, from $605,000 to $590,000. But prices have actually climbed from $540,000 to $570,000 across the metro since the start of 2026, a gain north of 6%.
How long does it take to sell a home in Denver right now?
Days in MLS are up 11.8% on the median and 4.4% on the average, with most correctly-priced homes going under contract in about six weeks. Sellers are getting roughly 99% of list price and averaging 5.5 showings per month, or just over one showing per week.
Which Denver metro cities have the strongest prices?
Highlands Ranch leads with prices up 1.2% year-over-year. Aurora is flat. Parker is down 0.3%. Littleton is down 1.2%. Denver proper is down 2.5%. Most submarkets are hovering flat as higher rates keep about half the typical first-time buyer pool on the sidelines.
Is Denver really the worst housing market in the country?
No. Denver isn't even in the top 10 metros for oversupply. Miami leads at 11.5 months of inventory, followed by Austin at 10.5, Orlando at 8.2, and Tampa at 7.9. Denver sits at 3.6 months, closer to balanced than distressed.
What metric best predicts where the Denver market is heading?
Month supply of inventory is the cleanest forward indicator for the next 6 to 12 months. Foreclosure filings are a useful early warning too because they take time to work through. Right now both signals suggest normalization, not a crash.
Do Denver neighborhood prices move together?
No, Denver has dozens of micro-markets that move independently. Some neighborhoods are up 20% year-over-year while others are down 20% in the same period. Metro-wide numbers don't reflect what's happening on your specific block, so neighborhood-level data matters when buying or selling.
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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