Blog > How Tariff Wars Are Shaping Denver's Housing Market
Denver Housing Market Update: Tariffs, Rates & Inventory Shifts
Denver's housing market is shifting fast. Active inventory is up 34.4% year-over-year, median price climbed to $565,000, and tariff uncertainty is pushing mortgage rates down from January's 7.05% peak.
How much inventory is on the Denver market right now?
Denver had 15,800 active listings at the end of February 2025, up 34.4% from 11,800 a year ago.
That's roughly 4,000 more homes for buyers to choose from compared to last February, or about an extra month of inventory across the metro.
New listings also climbed. February brought 7,700 new listings, up 12.6% year-over-year from 6,800. That sounds like a big jump in percentage terms, but when Denver sells 5,000 to 6,000 homes a month, an extra 800 listings isn't earth-shattering.
What I'm watching is the split between two markets. Well-priced homes in good locations with owner upgrades are still going under contract within a week or two. The outliers (busy streets, backing to commercial, near cemeteries or railroad tracks) are sitting. Buyers aren't willing to pay 6.5% to 7% interest on a property that doesn't check 80% of their boxes, and honestly, I don't blame them.
Are Denver home prices going up or down in 2025?
The median close price in Denver rose $13,000 from January to February, landing at $565,000, a 3.1% year-over-year increase.
This follows the exact same seasonal pattern we've seen the last few years. December and January are the lows. Prices climb every month into spring. Last year we went from $530K in January to $548K in February. The year before, January's low rose to $532K. Right on trend.
If we keep adding $13,000 to $15,000 a month, we could break the 2022 high of $590,000 by April. I'm genuinely surprised we're up 3.1% given everything happening with rates. Denver was one of the hottest COVID migration markets, and I expected to see prices stall or dip 1% to 2% as that hype settled. Instead, we're holding steady, which says a lot about underlying demand here.
How are tariffs affecting mortgage interest rates?
30-year conforming mortgage rates dropped from a January peak of 7.05% to 6.56% by early March 2025.
Tariff talk creates market uncertainty, and uncertainty pushes investors toward bonds, which tends to drag mortgage rates down. FHA 30-year is sitting around 6.28% right now, and 15-year conforming is at 5.78%.
If this trend continues and we break below 6%, expect more buyers and sellers to come off the sidelines. That would mean more inventory to choose from, but also faster sales and possibly multiple offer situations again.
Right now we're in a sweet spot. The Fed officially lowered rates in September 2024, but mortgage rates actually went up after that (typical). The current dip is driven more by tariff-related market jitters than Fed action. For buyers, this is a real window. For sellers, lower rates mean more qualified buyers walking through your door.
Is it a buyer's market or seller's market in Denver?
Denver sits at 2.8 months of inventory, which still favors sellers but is moving toward a balanced market.
The old benchmark says 4 to 6 months of inventory is balanced. I think in today's environment, 3 to 4 months is the real balance point. We're getting closer.
For sellers: you're still getting strong prices, but the days of $50,000 over asking are gone unless your home is exceptional. Expect to give concessions, negotiate on inspection items, and price aggressively from day one. The next 8 to 10 weeks are the best selling window of the year.
For buyers: you finally have time to think. You're not competing against 10 offers in most cases. Showings per listing average around 6, and homes take roughly 16 showings before going under contract. Average days on market is 63, up from last year. Use that breathing room to your advantage and negotiate hard on homes that have been sitting.
How does Denver compare to the national housing market?
The national median close price was $419,000 in January 2025, up about 4% from $402,000 a year prior, according to Redfin.
Denver's 3.1% gain is right in line with the national trend. Home sales nationally are down, but that's a supply story, not a demand story. We're still below 2018 and 2019 sales volumes because there simply aren't enough homes for sale. If listings doubled, sales would too.
You'll see scary headlines about markets crashing in Washington DC, Florida (hurricane fallout), and California (fires). Those are real localized issues. But every metro has micro-markets inside it.
In Denver, I can show you neighborhoods down 10% to 20% from the 2022 peak. I can also show you neighborhoods up 20% to 25% year-over-year. The metro-wide number hides what's actually happening on your block, which is why hyperlocal data matters more than national headlines.
What do pending and closed sales say about Denver's spring market?
Denver pending sales hit 5,700 in February 2025, up 8.5% from 5,200 a year ago, while closed sales fell 7.8% to 4,500.
That gap is interesting. Pendings are up, which means buyers who sat on the sidelines through 2023 and 2024 are finally moving. People hit their pain threshold (too many kids in one bathroom, aging parents moving in, jobs changing) and stopped waiting for rates to magically drop.
The closed-sales dip suggests more deals fell out of contract or took longer to close in February. January pendings were 4,900, and only 4,500 closed in February. I want to see March numbers before calling it a trend.
Bottom line: the spring market is activating. If active listings, pendings, and closings all rise together over the next two months, we're in a healthy market. If closings keep lagging, that tells me financing or inspection issues are killing deals at the finish line.
Video Chapters
Full Video Transcript
Full transcript from this video, organized by chapter. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the video.
Interest Rates and Market Updates
[0:00] Terra fors interest rates and markets crashing all across the country according to most headlines out there at least it's the beginning of March and you know what that means we have updated numbers for your Denver Market to let you know what's going on with your biggest investment is it a good time to buy is it a good time to sell we're going to unpack that we're going to look at some national numbers find out are we on Trend what is going on out there we're getting into the spring season generally our busiest time a year but is that going to hold true here for 2025 let's dig in to Denver starting with the amount of inventory out there and if you don't know me my name's Alex San I've been a local Denver agent since 2010 helping hundreds of people move across the Denver metro area relocating here from out of state I love this place uh it is home for me I've been here 25 years no I am not a native from Chicago originally but there's a reason why I live here and there's a reason why I stay here and if you find yourself with questions or needing anything just feel free reach out my phone number is below text me call me anytime I got you covered all right let's get out of the inventory here which is what drives our entire market so starting with new listings what we're looking at here is a fiveyear time frame of what happens with our new listings right and this is pretty cyclical ladies and gentlemen December January tend to be the low months of new listings coming to the market you see the last three years it's been the trend and then we start going up and we keep going up up up until about May or June every single year so where are we this year compared to last year right so this year in February there were 7,700 new listings across the entire Denver metro area which is up 12.6% year-over-year last year we had 6800 now is that really notable you know since 2021 all of our sales have been down all the numbers have been really depressed because of interest rates getting up there and everybody's kind of Frozen buyers and sellers alike so percentag wise it sounds like a big number and it'll make headlines uh however at the actual numbers it's not that big of an increase okay uh considering we sell about five 6,000 homes every single month in Denver having an additional 800 year-over-year nothing to write home about all right now active listing so what's going on with stuff sitting on the market right available inventory to pick from we are up from 14,600 in December up to about 15,800 in the end of February now this number is up 34.4% that is a fairly good size increase compared to last year so this year 15,800 last February we had 11,800 that's you know another 4,000 more homes to choose from year-over-year in the Denver metro area so that's an entire month more of inventory than we had a year ago so we're going to pay attention to this this uh you know I think there's a couple of different markets out there um and what I'm seeing across the board is that good homes priced well homeowner upgrades good locations all that they're still flying off the shelves uh they're still going under contract within a week or two the ones that are a little bit outliers right you're talking on a busy Street next to a busy Street next to commercial space next to a graveyard next to a cemetery railroad tracks those are hanging out basically people just don't want to pay six and a half 7% interest rates for something that is not ideal for them something that's not perfect they don't want to pay four grand a month or more and I can't blame them for something that doesn't check at least 80 to 90% of all of their boxes okay now on to pending listing so what is the market doing with this inventory well we're actually up year-over-year by about 8 and a half% so in February we put 5700 under contract last February we were at 5,200 right so that's up 8.5% so even though active listings are up new listings are up the amount of homes that are going to get to the closing table should also be up right so people that have been sitting on the sidelines the last couple years finally realizing you know what interest rates aren't going to go anywhere well they're getting off the sign lines it's time to move they've hit their pain threshold of too many people in the household multigenerational families and it's time to expand or it's time to contract and to down size so this year as far as close listings interesting we were down 7.8% year-over-year we closed 4500 properties in February versus last year we closed 4900 okay so let's unpack this one a little bit further because our pending listings are up year-over-year for this month for for for February right so that means these are properties that are going to close in March and the beginning of April okay well what was it last month so let's take a look at pendings so January was 4,900 compared to the year before at 5,000 so we were even year-over-year in January yet closed we closed 4500 how many went under contract 4,900 so you know we had a bunch fall out of contract take longer to close so this is this is a little interesting we're going to see what March brings obviously because that's when really things start to pick up uh is right now on the cell side the next eight to 10 weeks are the very best time to be a seller uh this is when the most buyers start to come off the sideline spring is happening uh people are kind of getting amped ready for summer wanting to be in their place by the summer um so if you're on the sell side now's your time ladies and gentlemen uh so we'll keep tracking this because I'd like to see Clos listings continue to increase your year-over year if active is going up and pending is going up I'd like to see closed follow that all right so on to the days in the MLS we went from being on average 67 days on the market right before going under contract so at another 30 to 45 days of close down to 63 so a little bit under and this is generally when we start to decline year over year uh the amount of days on Market always declines but that's still up 145% Year over-year all right here's ourth our month supply this is The Benchmark for if it's a buyer or a sellers Market four to six months of inventory is considered balanced as far as what the old-timers say I actually think it's more like three to four months is balanced in this day and age but we're at 2.8 uh months of inventory meaning if no new houses were to come out the market it would take 2.8 months to sell out of every single thing on the market on average so that's up a little bit and that's kind of the trend last year January was the low at two months and then we just you know keep going up and up and up every single year you can set your watch to it so in the bigger Trend this is what we're looking at too so we can see back in 2010 2011 we were at eight nine months of inventory on the market overall right and then we just declined declined Decline and then we kind of sat in this interesting spot of two to three months on uh the market of active inventory and then we plunged down during covid and now we're on the slowly incline up so really what this says is you know there are more options to choose from sellers aren't getting 50 Grand over right unless you've priced it aggressively or it's a really attractive house um in a great location and so we're just kind of on our way back to normal but yeah as a seller you're going to have to give concessions you're going to have to cave on certain inspection items going to happen for the most part right uh so the buyers have a little bit more of a better chance to negotiate and actually think on something for more than two hours uh which I can't say is a bad thing all right showings to going under contract we're looking at approximately 15 16 showings before going under contract for the month of February uh that's quite a few uh you know it's not not out of line though from previous year last year you know we were where were we we were at about 15.9 16 so we're on point right it's going to take 16 showings on average to get your house under contract and right now we have about six showings per listing on the MLS which extrapolates out to a little over two months of inventory right uh so those are the expectations you're getting one to two showings a week unless you are that house in the neighborhood perfect location great price homeowner upgrades uh and then you're typically going under contract within the first week or two and now what everybody wants to know are we going up in price are we going down in price well here we are we're we're staying on Trend ladies and gentlemen we are up $133,000 for the median close price in February from January is this normal 100% every single year we see December January is the lows and then last year we went from 530 up to 548 so same Trend year before the low was January February was up to 532 like so this is exactly the same that we have seen in previous years and if we keep zooming out this chart we can kind of see we've Consolidated a little bit here over the last couple of years but we might break the 2021 high or 2022 High I should say back in April which is 590 we're currently at 565 another one or two months of $15,000 price bumps um and we will be there but year-over-year we are up 3.1% in the Denver Market that's pretty solid ladies and gentlemen for all the turmoil and everything that's been out there especially with interest rates like to be up 3.1% I'm a little surprised we were one of those hyper markets okay when covid hit uh we were you know super attractive to a lot of people in the country uh that moved here outdoor lifestyle like everything that goes along with Colorado we have it and uh we were one of the top uh cities for migration coming in and so prices just escalated like crazy and I thought we would see a lot more going out since the co kind of hype has settled down um and I figured we'd be kind of flat you know or down one or two perent just kind of hovering in this stal made scenario but overall we're holding pretty steady um and interest rates are holding us steady and to talk about interest rates here's what we've got so if you've been paying attention uh you know there is a lot of chatter tariffs and things like that and stuff going on well when there's uncertainty in the market the fed's ability to work with interest rates you know that's that's their job is to control the markets by increasing or decreasing interest rates and as less people want to buy they decrease rates to get it more attractive well over time the banks also adjust their number so what we're seeing is in the last three months we peaked at 7.05% interest rates in January and we are down to 6.56 approximately uh for a 30-year conforming 30-year FHA is even better right they're at 6.28 right now 15-year conforming they're at 5.78 percent so not horrible in comparison to what's been going on in the last couple of years if I zoom this out in the last two years we're starting to get to that low point there right the low point that we saw here was back in September uh that's when they officially lowered rates and then rates went up after that so go figure um but if we continue on this trend and we get down below 6% I think that'll get even more people off the sidelines on both the sell side and the buy side uh and so so we might be in a little bit more of an active Market you might have more options to choose from which would be great but things will go a bit quicker right and you might run into multiple offer scenarios uh depending on how we continue to Trend um so interesting stuff here if you're on the buy side like you've got some options out there in the market right now and it's a good time to be a looker because you're actually balanced and you don't have to compete against 10 other offers in most cases if you're a seller you're still getting a great price uh but you're going to have to give in a little bit right it's not the crazy 50 Grand over uh asking price sort of stuff but you're still doing really solid as a seller so where do we stand nationally in comparison well according to red fin the national number as of the end of January was 419,000 as a median close price year before in 2024 that was 402 so we're up to 177,000 year-over-year nationally so a few percent that's pretty solid right 4% um the amount of home sales they're down but that's because of interest rates now we're not even back to 2019 2018 levels so we're a little bit suppressed there but it's not because there's you know a a ton less buyers there's less inventory to choose from like all of the numbers across the board are suppressed uh so that's just kind of what it is if there were twice as many sellers we would have a lot more home sales currently right pending sales you know yes we're kind of down a little bit there as well just like close listings new listings we're starting to poke up a little bit but we're still not to 2019 2018 levels so on the national level we're kind of in the trend ladies and gentlemen and this is what we're seeing across the board in most of the Metro markets there are a lot of headlines out there about markets crashing Washington DC in particular Florida well they had the hurricane go through there and that's just a hot mess California with their fires like there's a lot of stuff going on right now that is unfortunate in certain markets but every single Market has uh micro markets within it right I can show you certain neighborhoods around Denver that are down 10 to 20% since the 2022 Peak right I can show you other neighborhoods that are up 20 25% year-over-year and there's so many different micro markets out there that you really got to understand the nuances of every individual City and if you do have any questions about Denver feel free reach out call me text me be happy to help you and if you are looking for a deal you really need to watch this because I think there's a lot of misinformation about it especially for closure so check this video out
Spring Inventory Analysis
Year-Over-Year Listing Growth
Days on Market and Pricing
Median Home Prices Trend
Interest Rate Movements
Market Comparison and Outlook
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the median home price in Denver right now?
The median close price in Denver hit $565,000 in February 2025, up $13,000 from January and 3.1% higher year-over-year. If the typical spring trend holds, Denver could approach or exceed the 2022 peak of $590,000 by April or May.
Are mortgage rates expected to drop in 2025?
Rates have already dropped from 7.05% in January 2025 to 6.56% by early March, largely due to tariff-driven market uncertainty. If the trend continues and rates break below 6%, more buyers and sellers will likely re-enter the market, increasing both inventory and competition.
Is now a good time to sell a house in Denver?
Yes. The next 8 to 10 weeks are the strongest selling window of the year. Inventory is still tight at 2.8 months, prices are climbing seasonally, and pending sales are up 8.5% year-over-year. Price aggressively and expect to negotiate on inspection items.
How long does it take to sell a home in Denver?
The average home in Denver takes 63 days on market before going under contract in February 2025, then another 30 to 45 days to close. Well-priced, well-located homes with upgrades still sell within one to two weeks of hitting the MLS.
How many showings does it take to sell a Denver home?
On average, a Denver home needs about 16 showings before going under contract. Most listings get one to two showings per week. If your home is priced right and in a strong location, expect an offer in the first week or two.
Will tariffs cause Denver home prices to crash?
Unlikely in the near term. Tariff uncertainty is actually pushing mortgage rates down, which supports home prices. Denver remains supply-constrained, and demand from job growth and lifestyle migration keeps a floor under prices, even with national headlines suggesting otherwise.
Which Denver neighborhoods are down in value?
Some Denver neighborhoods are down 10% to 20% from their 2022 peak, while others are up 20% to 25% year-over-year. Metro-wide numbers hide huge variation between micro-markets, which is why neighborhood-level data matters more than citywide averages when buying or selling.
Thinking about buying or selling in Denver?
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