Blog > Tariffs DESTROY Hopes Of A Busy Spring Housing Market
How Tariffs Are Reshaping Denver's Spring Housing Market
Tariffs on Chinese goods are cooling Denver's spring market, pushing mortgage rates to 6.83% and widening the gap between list prices and final sale prices to nearly 10% nationally.
How are tariffs affecting the Denver housing market?
New U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are driving up construction costs by an estimated 20% on items like appliances and countertops.
When tariffs hit imported goods, everything tied to building and renovating gets more expensive. Lumber, appliances, countertops, fixtures, all of it. That cost doesn't just affect builders. It rattles buyer confidence.
If you're already stretched by high mortgage rates and now a kitchen remodel costs 20% more, you wait. You hesitate. You pull back. That's exactly what we're seeing in Denver right now.
More homes are on the market, but traffic is down. Showings are down. Offers are fewer. Sellers aren't panicking yet, but the market feels twitchy.
If tariffs keep piling on, expect new construction to slow further. Builders don't want to gamble on higher material costs paired with softening demand. Their exposure on a ground-up build is way bigger than a homeowner doing a bathroom refresh, so they'll pump the brakes first.
Why are mortgage rates rising again in 2025?
Mortgage rates jumped to 6.83%, the highest level in over a month, reversing the downward momentum from January and February.
The bump is tied directly to tariff uncertainty and the resulting volatility in bond markets. When investors get nervous about inflation (and tariffs are inflationary), they demand higher yields, which pushes mortgage rates up.
That extra friction is enough to sideline buyers who were finally getting comfortable earlier this year. A jump from the low 6s back to 6.83% can add $100 to $200 to a monthly payment on a typical Denver home around $600,000.
For buyers, this means payment shock is back on the table. For sellers, it means your pool of qualified buyers just got smaller again. Rates and tariffs are dancing together right now, and until one settles down, expect more buyers hesitating at the finish line. The serious ones are still out there, just fewer of them.
Why are homes selling below list price right now?
Redfin data shows the average home is selling for about $39,000 below list price, a 9% gap that's the widest since the early COVID market.
Sellers are still stuck in 2021. They're pricing based on vibes and hope, not what the data says. Meanwhile, buyers have wised up. They're looking at days on market, comparable sales, and what the house is actually worth, not what the seller wishes it'd fetch.
This sale-to-list gap shows up across nearly every price range nationally. Denver tracks higher in absolute dollars because our median is above the national figure, but the percentage gap is similar in most submarkets.
Not every Denver neighborhood is created equal. I can show you pockets up 10 to 15% year-over-year and others down 10 to 15%. That's why hyper-local pricing matters more than ever. The sellers winning right now priced ahead of the curve. The ones chasing the market with $5,000 weekly price drops are the ones sitting for months.
Should I buy a home in Denver right now?
Buyers currently have more negotiating power than at any point since 2022, with most listings receiving one or two offers instead of 15.
You're not waving inspections anymore. You're not writing love letters. You can actually negotiate price, repairs, closing costs, and concessions.
That said, the well-priced, well-presented homes in top neighborhoods are still moving fast. I had a buyer chasing a Wash Park property last weekend. The listing hit Friday, had a bunch of showings Saturday and Sunday, and by Monday morning the seller had an offer in hand. Even in a softer market, the right house in the right neighborhood at the right price still gets action.
So if you're a buyer, lean in. Get pre-approved, watch the market daily, and be ready to move on the good ones. But don't overpay for a home that's been sitting for 60 days with two price drops. That seller needs you more than you need them.
How should Denver sellers price their home in this market?
Sellers chasing the market with $5,000 to $10,000 weekly price drops are typically losing 5 to 10% versus pricing correctly from day one.
Price ahead of the curve, not behind it. The worst thing in this market isn't selling too low. It's not selling at all.
Your first two weeks on market are your most valuable. That's when serious buyers see your listing as new, with their agents pushing it. Miss that window with an aggressive price, and you become stale inventory.
When you do get an offer, work with that buyer. There aren't a ton of them out there, and the one in front of you actually wants your house. They just don't want to pay peak-2022 prices because they sense headwinds coming.
Present the home right, price it right, and respond quickly. Hoping a bidding war drives price up another 5% is a 2021 strategy. In 2025, one solid offer at asking is the best-case scenario for most listings.
What's the Denver housing market outlook for summer 2025?
Denver typically slows from mid-June through early August, but pent-up demand could flatten that dip if tariff headlines settle within the next 2 to 4 weeks.
April is historically the strongest month to be a seller because closings happen at peak pricing 30 to 45 days later. We're in that window now, but activity feels stagnant.
The good news? The buyers who are out are serious. It might take four or five showings to get an offer instead of 12. Some homes get an offer after one or two.
People still need somewhere to live. Tariffs and stock market chaos hit the pause button, not the cancel button. If the tariff noise calms down over the next month, I think pent-up demand pushes into the summer and we see a flatter, more active July and August than usual.
If the noise keeps escalating, expect a slower summer with more price reductions. Either way, buyers will have more options than they've had in years.
Video Chapters
Full Video Transcript
Full transcript from this video, organized by chapter. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the video.
Market Fear & Headlines
[0:00] Redf fin and homes.com are shooting warning flares about the real estate market. But is this something you should actually be paying attention to or is this just more fear-mongering to stir the pot? Well, in this video, we're going to dive into two of the latest articles. One that's raising alarm bells about tariff fears slowing down the spring market and another that's showing a massive gap of what homes are listed for and what they're actually selling for. Now, sure, the headlines sound dramatic, but once you look under the hood, the real story gets even more interesting. Now, since 2010, I've been helping people navigate the Denver market. And if you find yourself with questions, just give me a call or shoot me a text here. Starting with the homes.com article, and I'll have the link in the description below here.
[0:38] Headline is tariffs snuff out hopes of a busy spring housing market. We thought we saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Chief economist says, you know, they make some valid points in here. And they go over what the tariffs are doing, how that's kind of affecting consumer confidence. uh new home sales, right, with the tariffs are actually a pretty big deal. Um and has some great information, but we're going to break this all down. And then existing home sales falling to the lowest level since 2009. And then of course volatile mortgage rates kind of putting a lot of people into a panic and not really knowing exactly what to do. Starting with the elephant in the room, tariffs.
Homes.com Article Overview
[1:15] So, Homes.com just dropped this piece claiming that new US tariffs, specifically the ones on goods from China, are throwing cold water on what should be the hottest time of year for the housing market. So, why does this matter for real estate? Well, because when tariffs hit imported goods, gets more expensive to build and renovate homes, lumber, appliances, countertops, everything goes up. And that cost just doesn't affect builders. It messes with buyer confidence. Okay? If you're already struggling with high rates and now a kitchen rental might cost 20% more, you wait. You hesitate, you pull back. The article also points out that mortgage rates are back on the rise, sitting at 6.83% currently, which is pushing even more buyers to the sideline. That's the highest they've been in over a month, and it's reversing the momentum we started to see in January and February. Now, here's the part that hit me.
[2:08] Experts in the article flat out say that these tariffs are creating the exact kind of uncertainty that leads people to freeze. Buyers stall, sellers hold off, inventory builds, prices stagnate or slide. Now, we're seeing this already. More homes are on the market right now, but traffic is down, showings are down, offers fewer. Sellers aren't panicking yet, but the market feels a little kind of twitchy, right? And if tariffs keep piling on, expect new construction to slow down even further. Builders don't want to gamble on higher material costs and softening demand. Their expenses on a new build are going to be massively higher than what they are for your renovation of your kitchen or bathroom.
Buyer Confidence Decline
[2:50] All right, now let's talk about something a little bit more fascinating than tariffs, which is pricing psychology. I love pricing psychology. I love marketing. And Red Fin just dropped this stat that says it all. This kind of wraps up everything about what we're feeling in the entire market. Whether you're a buyer or a seller, the stat says the average home is selling for almost $39,000 below the list price right now.
Denver Price Analysis
[3:21] This chart is kind of fascinating. So in the entire country, right? And Denver is going to be more expensive than the national median. Seattle even more so. San Francisco even more so. But this percentage tracks amongst every price range. And it's a 10% difference from what houses are being listed for to what they're selling for. So if you list that 600,000 according to this data, which you know, one of my favorite quotes is figures can't lie, but liars can figure.
[3:52] It's stating that you will sell for approximately 10% less than that. Why is that? Okay, so this 9% gap, that's the biggest we've seen since COVID hit and we had a few months of a really crappy market right now. What that's telling me is that sellers are still stuck in 2021, right? They're pricing based off of the vibes, not the reality. Meanwhile, buyers, they've kind of wised up, right? And they're looking at days on market, not just Instagram worthy staging. and they're offering what they think the house is actually worth, not what the seller hopes it'll fetch. Okay, Red Fin's data shows that this is happening everywhere. And not every market is created equally, right? I can show you markets in Denver that are up 10 to 15% year-over-year. And I can show you other markets here that are down 10 to 15% year-over-year. Okay? The sale to list ratio is dropping just across the board, right? And it's a flashing a warning sign that sellers need to adjust and fast or you're going to risk sitting for months. So here's what that means. If you're a buyer, you have some leverage right now. You're not competing with 15 offers anymore. You're not waving inspections. You can negotiate again.
[5:01] And if you're a seller, you need to wake up. Price ahead of the curve, not behind it. Because the worst thing in this kind of market isn't selling too low. It's not selling at all. I mean, just this last weekend, right? I went and looked for a buyer at a property. uh and it was in number one neighborhood in Denver and Wash Park and the activity was high right uh they had a several handfuls of showings and come Sunday they had an offer in hand so one day after being on the market threats of multiple offers and then by Monday morning I got the message saying hey actually we just got one offer in hand so if you want to compete you're just competing against one right so even though they priced it well they priced it right. The house looked right. It looked good, presented well. They did everything right. They might have been hoping for multiple offers and drive the price up by 5%, 10% maybe, but at the end of the day, they ended up with one offer probably right at around asking price, right? And that is maybe the best case scenario. But what we're seeing is wanting to push the price. If you don't ask for it, you don't get it. 100% true. I get that.
Pricing Strategy Lessons
[6:12] I've been in that boat before. But at the same time, we might be playing a catch-up game to where you're trying to catch up with price. So if you do a $5 to $10,000 price adjustment once a week, once every other week, you might just be keeping up with what the market is doing, not getting ahead of the curve, right? So right out of the gate, presenting right, pricing right, and then working with the buyers that you do have because there's not a ton of them out there right now. Every market is a little bit different. Uh, but don't mess around when you get an offer in. Try to work with that buyer because they want your house. They just want to maybe, you know, not pay top of the market price for it because they feel like a headwind is coming. So, what does my crystal ball say is going to be happening over the next 3 6 12 months in the Denver market specifically? You know, I actually think we could see an interesting summer. So, right now, April historically is the very best month to be a seller, right?
April Market Outlook
[7:11] We're at tippy top pricing for properties that are going to close in the next 30 to 45 days. And that's what we're in right now. And activity is pretty stagnant, right? The buyers that are out are serious buyers, though. So, that's the nice thing. It might not take 12 showings to get an offer. It might take four or five, right? Maybe one, maybe two. Um, but what's going to happen is there's still demand out there. There's still people need somewhere to live, right? And so these tariffs have really kind of hit the pause button on everybody along with the stock market, right? And they go kind of hand to hand and it's all whackadoodle.
[7:46] Um and so it's got a lot of people scared. That doesn't mean they're not going to ever buy. Just means they're holding off. So where we start to slow down in the middle of June and into July, that's really slow and into the beginning of August where then it starts to pick up, we might actually see more of a a flattening out might be my guess. if they get the tariff thing handled and they stop saying tariff wars and tariff this and tariff that and tariff just shut up and things are going to be normalized again. Uh but I think that's part of the uh goal here is to make things a little out of whack before they get back to normal. So if they settle down over the next two to four weeks um I think all this pent-up demand is still going to continue through the summer month but as a buyer you're still going to have some more options. Uh, so it'll be interesting to see and I will keep you posted on what's happening. Now, if you need help navigating the Denver market, uh, just give me a call, shoot me a text message. I'll help you out and put you on the right path. But these numbers in general are big numbers that we're looking at for the entire US housing market. And if you want to see what's been going on Denver specifically, check out my last market report
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the current mortgage rate in Denver?
As of late April 2025, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate sits at 6.83%, the highest level in over a month. Rates reversed course after dropping in January and February, largely due to tariff-driven inflation concerns rippling through bond markets and pushing yields higher.
How much below list price are homes selling for?
Nationally, the average home is selling for about $39,000 below list price, roughly a 9% gap. That's the widest spread we've seen since the early COVID market. Denver tracks similarly in percentage terms, though absolute dollar gaps are larger here because our median price is above the national figure.
Is now a good time to buy a house in Denver?
If you're financially ready and plan to stay 5+ years, yes. Buyers have real negotiating power right now, fewer competing offers, and sellers willing to deal on price, repairs, and concessions. The trade-off is higher mortgage rates, but you can always refinance later if rates drop.
Will tariffs make new construction homes more expensive?
Yes. Tariffs on imported building materials, appliances, and finishes are pushing builder costs up significantly. Many builders will pass those costs to buyers or slow new starts to avoid risk. Expect new construction inventory to tighten and base prices to rise on remaining inventory over the next 6 to 12 months.
Should I list my home now or wait until later in 2025?
April through early June is historically the strongest selling window in Denver. Waiting risks landing in the slower mid-summer stretch and competing with more inventory. If your home is priced correctly and presents well, listing now still gives you the best shot at a clean, timely sale.
How many offers are Denver homes getting in spring 2025?
Most well-priced Denver listings are getting one to three offers, not the 10 to 15 we saw in 2021. Even in top neighborhoods like Wash Park, sellers are often working with a single offer near asking price rather than driving multi-offer bidding wars.
What happens to the Denver market if tariffs continue?
Continued tariffs would likely keep mortgage rates elevated, slow new construction, and keep buyers hesitant. Expect prices to flatten or slide modestly in most Denver neighborhoods, longer days on market, and more price reductions. The serious buyers will still transact, but volume stays well below normal.
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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