Buyers face a 1.7-month supply of homes

Buyers face a 1.7-month supply of homes

There is less than a two-month supply of unsold single-family homes in the Denver-area market, according to a report released today.

This 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home at 1240 Pennsylvania St. is priced a $349,500, close to the average price of a home sold last month.

This 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home at 1240 Pennsylvania St. is priced a $349,500, close to the average price of a home sold last month.

“Even though there were 2,505 more homes available in June than in March, buyer demand is still strong,” said Bauer, who based his report on Metrolist data.

The Denver-area home market had the fewest unsold on the markets since records have been tracked by Metrolist last March. The lower the price of a home, the lower the available months of inventory.

There was only a month’s worth of unsold homes priced just below $100,000, for example. It doesn’t get much better for homes pried below $300,000. For homes priced from $100,000 to $199,999, there was only a 1.15-month supply of homes and from $200,000 to $299,99, there was only a 1.10-month supply.

While some media outlets focused last week on the 1.7 percent drop in total closings in June from May — even though it was otherwise a record June by a number of metrics — all the drop in month-to-month sales occurred for homes priced below $400,000, according to Bauer’s analysis.

The biggest percentage drop occurred for homes priced at $99,000 or below.

Single-family homes in that price range showed a 19.2 percent drop from May. Condos in that price range showed a 21.08 percent month-to-month drop. Overall, there is only a 1.44-month of condos on the market.

“We had 59 sales from $0 to $99,999 and I think we had 59 new listings added to the active inventory in that price range last month,” Bauer said. “The other thing is that more consumers also are buying new homes. New home builders are building homes as fast as they can to keep up with consumer demand, even though they are facing challenges such as a shortage of labor, materials and finished lots.”

At the other end of the scale, there is a 17-month supply of resale homes priced at $2 million or more. However, those luxury homes also showed the biggest month-to-month percentage gain, with closings rising by 44.4 percent.

“It continued all through the recession,” he said. “The American Dream is still to own a home. It’s a lifestyle choice.”

Many consumers would rather own a home than rent, he said.

It also is becoming increasingly more expensive to be a renter, he said.

“Short-term, the impact has been minimal, but long-term, if rates continue to rise, it will have a big impact,” Bauer said.

“If rates go up another point, that will be a 2-point or 2.5-point increase from the lows,” Bauer said. “If that happens, I think we will see the market slow.”

Meanwhile, records for June set last month include:

  • Average price of a residential (single-family) home – $349,339.
  • Residential average sold price (year to date) – $328,427.
  • Single-family (all homes) – $318,541.
  • Single-family average sold price (YTD) – $301,151.
  • Residential median price – $290,000.
  • Residential median price (YTD) – $275,000.
  • Single-family homes under contract – 7,420.

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John Marcotte

720-771-9401

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Existing home sales edge higher, inventory at 13-year low

Existing home sales edge higher, inventory at 13-year low

A vacant and blighted house sits next to a well-kept occupied house in a once thriving eastside neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan January 23, 2013. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

U.S. home resales edged higher in January and left the supply of homes at its lowest level in 13 years, a sign that steam is gathering in the U.S. housing market.

The National Association of Realtors said on Thursday that existing home sales rose 0.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million units.

That was the second highest rate of sales since November 2009, when a federal tax credit for home buyers was due to expire.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 4.9 million-unit rate.

The U.S. housing market tanked on the eve of the 2007-09 recession and has yet to fully recover, but steady job creation helped the housing sector last year, when it added to economic growth for the first time since 2005.

The nation’s inventory of existing homes for sale, which is not seasonally adjusted, fell 4.9 percent from December to 1.74 million, the lowest level since December 1999.

Many Americans are holding back from putting their homes on the market because they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. A sharp drop in inventories over the last year has given developers more incentive to build homes. Home building is expected to boost the economymore in 2013 than it did last year.

Inventories were down 25.3 percent from January 2012.

At the current pace of sales, inventories would be exhausted in 4.2 months, the lowest rate since April 2005.

The low inventories are also helping pushing prices higher.

Nationwide, the median price for a home resale was $173,600 in January, up 12.3 percent from a year earlier.

(Reporting by Jason Lange)

 

John Marcotte

720-771-9401

Search all Boulder CO homes for sale