Denver home prices highest between coasts

This 760-square-foot row home sold earlier this month for $250,000.

The Denver-Aurora area had the highest price homes in the middle of the country at the end of July, according to a national report released today.

The report by RealtyTrac also shows that 24 percent of the homes sold in July in Denver were for all cash.

While that may seem like a lot, it is far below the national average of 40 percent all-cash purchases.

The median price of a home in the Denver metropolitan statistical area was $250,000, according to the Irvine, Calif.- based real estate data company.

Only cities on either coast and Honolulu were more expensive.

Denver was the 10th most expensive city of the 58 MSAs tracked in the report.

Of the top 10 most expensive cities, half of them were in California, with the San Jose MSA leading the pack with a median price of $640,000.

U.S. median price $174,500

The median price in Denver was 43.3 percent more than the national median sales price of $174,500.

In Denver, prices rose by 2 percent from June and 11 percent year-over-year.

Nationally prices rose 4 percent from June and 6 percent from July 2012, marking the 16th consecutive month in which median prices nationwide have increased annually after bottoming in March 2012. according to RealtyTrac.

Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Colorado, despite the report, said that home prices are affordable in Denver.

“Home prices are less expensive in Denver than in most major cities,” he said.

“Denver prices are less than in Chicago, for example,” he said.

Although the RealtyTrac report disagrees, as it places the median price at $182,000 in the Chicago MSA, Mygatt does have a point.

RealtyTrac uses Census blocks to define the MSAs. The Chicago MSA not only captures home sales in the Windy City, but in Naperville, Joliet and ner the Indiana and Wisconsin borders.

Such a wide geographic swath includes a large range of home prices.

In Naperville, for example, the median price of a home is about $350,000, while it is about $110,000 in Joliet. In Wilmette, a suburb near Chicago’s North Shore, the median price of a home is approaching $600,000. www.insiderrealestatenews.com

Seems like now is the time to buy a home in Boulder!