Some information can be misleading. Take this post shared Thursday, June 4th by a very credible organization, the Denver Board of Real Estate Agents. They call this information the “June 2020 Market Overview” but it is important to understand that the data is based on homes closed in May 2020. You may or may not know that once you find a home you love and put in an offer, you are typically “under contract” on that property for at least 30 days giving you a due diligence period before you close. So the homes that closed in May 2020 were put under contract in April 2020. On March 23rd Coloradoan’s were ordered to “stay at home” and by April 8th, all in-person showings were shut down. Real Estate agents adopted virtual showing strategies, but showings did not resume until the beginning of May. So now you know that June 2020 stats should really be labeled April 2020 stats. Now that you understand that our stats are a lagging indicator, you can understand how the graphic actually shows what happened to the Denver real estate market during the “Stay at Home” order in Denver.

I have better sources for my data and I’m on the front lines and I can tell you our real estate market has come back really strong since “Stay at Home”. The graph below shows data from the beginning of the year. Covid19 really started to impact our market mid-March and the worst of it was mid-April. As you can see, by the first week in May we got back on track and closing just started bouncing back last week. That makes sense right? Homes close 30 days after the showing is completed and the contract is signed. Showings started at the beginning of May, so we would expect closing to follow 30 days later at the beginning of June. Understanding that our data is always lagging by 30 days will really help you navigate real estate stats or you are welcome to JUST ASK ME!

 

5280 posted an article last week “Taking Your House Hunt Online? Here’s What You Need To Know About Virtual Tours” Here are some takeaways to remember about your virtual house hunting.

The article can be found here.

In 2018 we saw the same pattern of the past with a very hot spring market that cooled down when inventory came on in June. September was an unusually slow month due to the midterm elections. The blue columns behind show the percentage of ask price. At the first circle where demand and supply are very tight, you can see that sellers were getting over their asking price. As inventory increased, many listings were going under asking in the Fall.

We definitely saw prices go up in the first half of the year as the Spring bidding wars escalated prices. The highest prices were in April, which would have been clients shopping for homes in March when you see the under contracts peak in the first graph. Although prices dropped after June, they didn’t dip under $415K where we started the year in 2018.

In 2018, listing went under contract faster than average in the beginning of the year, but at the end of 2018 homes actually stayed on the market longer than average between 2013-2017. You can see that in March, April, and May homes were only on the market for about five days. That means they get listed on Thursday, have an open house on Saturday, and are under contract by Monday. This is a very typical pattern for Denver during the Spring market.