Blog > Denver Housing Market Alert! Surprising New Trend
Denver Sellers Pulling Listings: What 4,600 Withdrawals Mean
Denver had 4,600 homes withdrawn or expired in just 40 days, roughly 25% of active inventory. That's the biggest pullback I've seen in 15 years of selling real estate here.
How many Denver homes were pulled off the market in fall 2024?
Between September 1 and October 9, 2024, 4,600 Denver area homes were either withdrawn or expired on the MLS.
Breaking that down, 1,435 listings went withdrawn (temporarily off market) and 3,222 expired (contract with the agent ended). That's a 40-day window across the entire Front Range, including single-family homes, condos, and townhomes.
For context, 7,453 new listings came on the market in the same period. So more than 60% of the new inventory volume got yanked back off. With 18,700 active listings at the end of September, the withdrawn and expired count equals roughly 25% of everything currently for sale.
In 15 years selling Denver real estate, I've never seen withdrawal and expired numbers this large in such a short window. It's a clear signal that sellers and agents misjudged the market this summer, and now folks are quitting rather than chasing the price down.
Why are so many Denver sellers giving up right now?
Three forces are stacking: seasonality, the 2024 election, and the rate lock-in effect from sub-3% mortgages.
Spring is actually the best selling season, and by Mother's Day the activity already starts cooling. Closing data lags by 60 to 90 days, so summer numbers look strong while real momentum has already faded. By July, everything slows. By October with an election looming, buyers freeze.
Layer on the rate lock-in problem. If you have a 3% mortgage, you don't move unless life forces you to. A death in the family, a job relocation, a divorce. Even inheriting a house often ends in renting it out instead of selling, because the rent covers the cheap mortgage with room to spare.
Fewer buyers plus fewer motivated sellers plus election uncertainty equals a stagnant, treading-water market. Sellers who priced for 2022 are now choosing to wait rather than accept 2024 reality.
What is the salesman promise and how does it hurt sellers?
Metro Denver has over 40,000 licensed real estate agents serving about 3 million people, more than 1% of the population.
With closings down 50 to 75% from the 2022 peak, agents are hungry. A common interview tactic: a seller asks five agents "what can you sell my house for?" Four say $600,000. One says $650,000 with a confident pitch. Guess who gets hired?
That's the salesman promise. Tell the seller what they want to hear, get the listing signed, then bank on slow price drops over weeks or months. Historically only about 50% of licensed agents close even one deal in a 12-month period, so the pressure to overpromise is real.
The seller ends up with two options when showings don't come: withdraw the listing in frustration, or chase the market down with price cuts. Either way, that 4,600 number keeps climbing. I'd rather lose the listing than set a price 8% above reality.
How should I price my Denver home if I want to sell?
My pricing benchmark lands within 1% of final sale price about 99% of the time, but the seller still sets the number.
Here's the honest math. If comps say your house is worth $600,000 and you list at $650,000, the odds of actually closing at $650K are maybe 5%. The likelier outcome after weeks of stale market time is closing around $575,000, below where you would have landed at a sharp $600,000 list.
That upside-downside risk is the real conversation. Shooting high costs you market time, showings, and ultimately price. If a seller wants to test a higher number and we both agree the relationship and expectations are aligned, I'll go for it. But we set a written timeline for adjustments.
Ask agents how they market, what their average list-to-sale ratio is, and how many days on market their listings average. Don't pick the agent who quotes the highest number. Pick the one with a documented process.
Is fall 2024 a good time to sell a Denver home?
Active inventory dropped to 18,700 even as 7,453 new listings came on in 40 days, signaling thinner real competition.
Counterintuitive answer: yes, if you're realistic. With so many sellers pulling out, the remaining well-priced listings face less direct competition. Buyers who are actively shopping in October and November are usually serious. They have a reason to move now, not in spring.
The trap is pricing for the spring 2022 market. That's gone. If you price to current comps and present the home well (clean, decluttered, professional photos), you can still get a clean deal closed before year end.
If your timeline allows waiting, spring 2025 should be stronger. Pent-up demand from millennial buyers, lateral movers, and downsizers is real. If interest rates keep drifting down, that demand uncorks. But waiting also means competing with every other seller who decided to wait. There's no perfect window, only the right price for your house today.
What does the withdrawn listing surge mean for Denver buyers?
Roughly 25% of Denver's standing inventory was removed in 40 days, which thins selection but reveals motivated sellers.
If you're buying, the listings still sitting on the market past 30 days are often the best negotiating opportunities. The seller didn't pull it off. They're committed to selling, just maybe at the wrong price. That's a conversation worth having.
Keep an eye on price reductions in your target neighborhoods. A home that started at $650,000 and is now sitting at $619,000 after 60 days is more flexible than the brand new listing that hit yesterday. Sellers who held on rather than withdrawing have already shown they want out.
Also watch for previously withdrawn listings coming back at new prices. The MLS resets days on market in some cases, but a good buyer's agent can pull the full listing history and show you the real story. That history is leverage in negotiation, especially in this quiet election-cycle market.
Video Chapters
Full Video Transcript
Full transcript from this video, organized by chapter. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the video.
Denver Market Overview
[0:00] I just saw something wild out here that I needed to share with you so we got a quick impromptu video on something that's a little bit out of line with the Denver market so I watch all these numbers you know every day like a hawk and sometimes something just pops out at me that makes you go H okay so if you watch my monthly updates uh you know you know prices are starting to drop and that's all cyclically happening as it does every single year uh what's crazy though is how many houses are coming off the market that are no longer for sale okay so this is what I just saw let me share this with you here um and it's a little hard to get a lot of this data real time all the data is delayed uh what is not delayed is the properties that are on the MLS currently okay so I have to do a little bit of math here um and I wanted to see okay it's October 9th right now what's going on over the last you know month and a week right over the last 40 days since September 1st how are things looking how are things feeling the elections coming up um you know a lot of people head on the break stuff like that but what I want to see is how many were coming on the market since then so from and there's a reason why I'm doing it like this uh how many are active in the last coming on the market in the last 20 days so we got 4,235 that's his little number at the bottom left okay and then how many from 21 to 40 days and the reason why I have to do that is because it's more than 5,000 results in the MLS doesn't give me a number so anyways I just got to add these two up so 3218 okay um 4235 plus 3218 plus 3218 equals 7453 units to come on the market and this covers all the Front Range and everything um all right so just keep that in mind 7400 new listings to come back on the market okay so how many have gone off the market in the last 40 days withdrawn all right 1435 okay great now when you're withdrawn that means you're temporarily off the market you're not fully expired yet you're kind of still for sale but you're just not showing up in anybody's uh search results right now maybe you took it off to repaint do carpet update something like that uh just give yourself a break from showings and stuff like that and yeah so in the last 40 days there's been 1,400 to go withdrawn expired in the last 40 days have 3,222 that's 4600 so combined between withdrawn and expired that's 4600 combined houses condos Town Homes to be pulled off the market that are not not currently for sale so not only you know yes there's less coming off than went active but this is not usually anything that we that's even close to these numbers right it's more than 50% were removed then came onto the market what makes this wild so if you watched my last monthly update last week uh you saw that the amount of active listings went down from 19,500 down to 18,700 well so we have 18,700 current active listings as of the end of September but we had 4600 come off the market I mean what's that math 25% of all active listings were removed from the Denver real estate market for you to be able to buy as a buyer so what does that do what in the heck is going on here well there's there's kind of a couple of of things taking hold and what happens every single year spring is the best time to be a seller right and everything's the most active but most people think of spring is June okay they think of it as May June by the time Mother's Day hits in May you're already starting the downward Trend but the numbers are still going up why because everybody who's closing in June and July got their house under contract the beginning of May or before okay so all the numbers are delayed but all you've ever heard in your life from the mass media is that summer is the best time to sell well then July hits and every everything comes to a screeching halt and then the election happens and now we have been down so much in sales over the past few years um you have this kind of other effect that's happening in addition to high interest rates kind of freezing everybody in their house right if you got a 3% interest rate you don't move unless you have to move unless you have a life-changing event uh you know family member passes away you know you inherit your parents house and you just don't want anything to do with it and and even then you know you may not sell it because you can still probably rent it out for way more than what the current mortgage is like there's lots of reasons why someone would not sell right now in addition to there not being a whole ton of buyer activity happening right now coupled with the election and then you have this other factor that you guys don't really hear about and that is the salesman promise okay that's what we're going to call it um how many agents are in Denver there's over 40,000 agents in the Denver metro area there's about 3 million people in the Denver metro area so more than 1% of everybody that lives here is a real estate agent I mean that's comparable to government employees right and back a few years ago before we even started having having a reduction in closings only 50% of every licensed real estate agent had one single closing in a 12-month period okay that's typical why because the barrier of Entry is low unfortun cost about $2,500 took me about four weeks to get my license doesn't teach a squat about the business or how to actually represent somebody in the purchase or sale of a house anyways what happens is is that we're down 50 75% in closings from the last couple of years okay from like 2022 when it was all craziness um and real estate was sexy and it was easy and it was fun and everybody could make a million dollars doing it now it's not so fun now it's not so sexy there's a couple of different ways that people think they should interview real estate agents for the job and the biggest way that people interview is well what do you think it's worth right and I'll be honest with you most of the time it doesn't matter what I think it's worth right I have a good Benchmark and 99% of the time I'm within 1% of what properties actually sell for uh but that's besides the point it is your house our job is an agent is to represent you as the seller or as the buyer but you talk to five different you know agents and you say Hey What Can you sell my house for what can you sell my house for and your house maybe is worth 600,000 all day long and then someone comes in and is like dude 650 no problem here's why right and what do you do you sign on the dotted line probably because it sounds like a good you know uh good song and dance and you sign on the dotted line for 650 and then a couple weeks go by and you have one showing and then more time goes by and nothing happens so you have one one of two choices you either a do nothing and just say you know what this person told me I could sell at 650 that was my expectation I'm not going to drop the price so let's just take it off the market hence what we have going on in the market right now with withd drawns and expired there's lots of tension there's lots of friction in those relationships I don't do those um I would rather have you work with somebody else if that price is way out in left field but you're still in charge of setting the price right uh and so the other way you can interview agents is to you know have to to to Really find out what they do for marketing and how they're going to assist you and then what lots of good agents I hate saying that phrase but good agents will ask you what do you want to sell it for oh well I want to shoot for 650 okay great here's the reality right everything selling for 600,000 okay the likelihood for you to get 650 maybe 5% okay now if we shoot high and we miss ultimately you're likely going to close below 600,000 you're probably going to close at 575 so is that upside risk worth the downside risk okay totally year call and if it's close enough within the realm that we don't think we're going to waste time we're going to waste money because we're going to spend a couple thousand dollar on maret Market in this property right uh if we don't if we don't think it's going to be a total waste and hey you're looking to sell you're not just looking for a pine Sky number but you want to shoot for hire okay sure like let's take a whack at it if the relationship is there and we're feeling good with each other we know we're kind of shooting high but then the re reality is hey you know likely it's going to sell at 600 or below okay cool as long as everybody's on the same page let's go for it that's not often what happens so either a you get frustrated that your house doesn't sell it at 650 like this person said they could sell it at and you end up withdrawing it or expiring it or you just end up dropping your price slowly over time and this is what most agents are banking on okay because next to marketing right putting it in front of every single eyeball in the world that's looking to buy a house in your neighborhood your city whatever um beyond that you know we don't have a whole ton of control yeah we can follow up with showings and get feedback and find things out and should you paint it should you carpet it this stuff but in reality your house is going to sell for the right price no matter what you do to it okay there's a price for every house in the world you just got to find out what that is in your current market and you might not like the market so plan B is to just drop your price until you get there and being that us agents know that once you sign on the dotted line you know you're in this together until you bail out of the contract and that's if they're going to let you out of the contract right so as there's less closings there's less sales happening un un fortunately we're sales people and a lot of us just say whatever the heck we can do uh to say to get you to sign on the dotted line that way there's a potential for a Payday okay and that's the reality of what we're seeing out there we're seeing lots of frustration than on overpromises and underd deliver people are taking their house off the market coupled with higher interest rates and no one with a 3% interest rate wanting to move and then you put the election on top of it and woo it makes for a real stagnant feel out there okay everything's just kind of Treading Water things aren't flushing in price things aren't shooting up in price but everything is just steady Edy and it's a real creepy Vibe out there so a lot of people are taking their house off the market okay I just wanted to share these numbers with you because they're really they're the they're the biggest amount of withdraws expired I've ever seen in 15 years in this business in Denver um and I think you should know it and what you're up against so I do think there's a good opportunity to be a seller you know coming in the next handful of months here um because there's not a whole lot on the market still and even more people are taking their houses off so if you're realistic I think there's a good opportunity I think spring is still going to be great with interest rates continuing to drop we got a lot of pent up demand we got a lot of millennial buyers out there wanting to do their thing we have a lot of lateral mover uh move up move down downsizing buyers sellers uh out there wanting to make a move and if we get interest rates low enough I think that'll shake things up and we'll have a good spring season so once again if you got any questions let me know you can scan this QR code you can get in touch with me you can call me you can text me um whatever you need to do and until the next time happy housing
Withdrawn & Expired Listings
Seasonal Trends & Election Impact
Pricing Strategy Mistakes
Agent Negotiation & Expectations
Marketing & Market Conditions
Current Market Stagnation
Spring Opportunity Outlook
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between a withdrawn and expired Denver listing?
A withdrawn listing is temporarily off the active MLS but the seller still has a contract with their agent, often pausing for repairs or showings fatigue. An expired listing means the listing agreement ended without a sale, and the seller is no longer under contract with that agent.
How many real estate agents are there in Denver?
Metro Denver has over 40,000 licensed real estate agents serving roughly 3 million residents. That's more than 1% of the population. Historically, only about half of licensed agents close even one transaction in a 12-month period, which creates pressure to overpromise on pricing to win listings.
Why won't homeowners with low mortgage rates sell?
Homeowners locked into 2.5% to 3.5% mortgages from 2020 to 2021 face a huge monthly payment jump if they buy a new home at today's rates near 6.5% to 7%. Unless a life event forces a move (job, family, divorce, inheritance), most stay put or rent out the house instead.
Will Denver home prices drop in 2025?
Denver prices have been treading water rather than crashing. With low inventory and pent-up demand from millennials and downsizers, a meaningful drop is unlikely if interest rates fall. Expect a stronger spring 2025 selling season, with steady or slightly rising prices in most metro neighborhoods.
Should I relist my expired Denver home with a new agent?
Often yes, but only after honest pricing analysis. If the original list price was 5% to 10% above comps, the issue was strategy, not the agent or the home. Interview agents on marketing process and recent list-to-sale ratios, not who quotes the highest price.
How long does a typical Denver home sit on the market in fall 2024?
Median days on market has stretched well beyond the 7 to 14 day pace of 2021 and 2022. Properly priced homes in desirable Denver neighborhoods still go under contract within 30 days. Overpriced listings often sit 60 to 90 days before withdrawing or significantly cutting price.
Is it better to sell my Denver home now or wait until spring?
If you can price to current comps and need to move, selling now means less direct competition since 25% of inventory was just pulled. If you can wait and your home shows best in warmer months, spring 2025 should bring more buyers, especially if interest rates drop further.
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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