January Denver Area Press Release

Denver Area January Home Sales

The number of homes sold in the Denver region in January fell more than usual from December but rose year-over-year to the highest level for that month since 2008. The median sale price also dipped month-to-month but was higher than a year earlier for the first time since last June. Some other price measures also showed modest year-over-year gains, a real estate information service reported.
 
A total of 2,467 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in January across the eight-county Denver-Aurora metro area. That was down 27.7 percent from the prior month but up 4.4 percent from a year earlier, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.
 
A drop in sales between December and January is normal for the season, with the decline averaging 21.8 percent since 1998, when DataQuick's complete Denver-area statistics begin. January sales fell 31.6 percent below average for that month.
 
Denver-area sales for all of 2011 totaled 44,416, up 1.6 percent from 2010 and the highest since 2009. New-home sales totaled 4,011 in 2011 and were the lowest for any year since at least 1998.
 
The Denver metro area statistics in this report and in the table below reflect sales in Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson and Park counties.
 
The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the Denver region during January was $205,000, down 2.4 percent from the month before and up 6.8 percent from a year earlier. It was the first annual gain in the all-home median sale price since June 2011, when it rose 1.1 percent year-over-year.
The January median was 17.2 percent lower than the Denver area's peak $247,569 median in June 2006. After peaking, the region's median sale price fell to as low as $170,000 in January 2009.
 
The median price paid in January for resale single-family detached houses fell 3.1 percent from December but rose 4.6 percent above a year earlier - the first annual gain since last June, when the resale house median posted a 0.4 percent increase. The median paid for resale condos in January dipped 5.5 percent month-to-month and fell 1.5 percent year-over-year.
 
An alternative price gauge analysts track, the median price paid per square foot for resale single-family detached houses, slipped to $133 in January, down 0.7 percent from the prior month and up 3.9 percent from a year earlier - the first annual gain since last June. The January figure was 21.5 percent lower than the peak $169 paid per square foot in March 2001.
 
The region's larger counties recorded the following year-over-year changes in January to their median price paid per square foot for resale houses: Adams County, down 1.3 percent; Arapahoe County, up 4.2 percent; Denver County, up 5.0 percent; Douglas County, up 1.4 percent; and Jefferson County, up 2.2 percent.
 
Absentee buyers, a group that includes investors and vacation-home buyers, accounted for a near-record 27.9 percent of the Denver area's January home sales, up from 26.7 percent the month before and 27.4 percent a year earlier. The record was 28.4 percent in February 2011. Absentee buyers paid a median $141,500 in January, up 1.1 percent from the prior month and up 8.8 percent from a year earlier.
 
Buyers who appeared to have bought with cash represented 28.0 percent of January sales, up from 26.6 percent the prior month and down from 31.2 percent a year earlier. The figure peaked at 32.1 percent in February 2011. All-cash buyers paid a median $150,000 in January, up 7.2 percent from the prior month and up 20.5 percent from a year earlier. Government-insured FHA loans, which are popular with first-time buyers and others using low down payments, accounted for 35.1 percent of all home purchase loans used in January. That was up from 32.8 percent the month before and down from 38.3 a year earlier. FHA use in the current cycle peaked at 53.4 percent of all purchase loans in November 2009.
 
Short sales - transactions where the sale price fell short of what was owed on the property - made up an estimated 12.2 percent of the Denver region's resale transactions in January, up from 11.1 percent the prior month and 10.4 percent a year earlier.

In neighboring Boulder County, 233 new and resale houses and condos sold in January, down 22.8 percent from the prior month and down 3.3 percent from a year earlier. The median price paid for all homes sold in the county during January was $290,850, down 6.2 percent from the prior month and up 1.1 percent from a year earlier. Boulder County's median price paid per square foot for resale detached houses dipped in January to $183, down 6.2 percent from the month before and down 3.7 percent from a year earlier.

Denver Chart is available at DQNews.com.

Media calls: Andrew LePage (916) 456-7157

Source: DataQuick; DQNews.com