Denver's real estate market is shifting, slightly
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Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios
With pending home sales down 2.7% year over year, Denver's real estate market is showing early signs of slowing down.
Yes, but: Home prices are still up 14.4% from May 2021.
Why it matters: We keep hearing about a market crash, but so far, local data doesn't support that claim.
What's happening: From May 2021 to May 2022, new listings in Denver were up 6.2% and pending sales were down 2.7%.
- More buyers are holding off as home ownership becomes too expensive.
- This comes after mortgage rates surpassed 5% for the first time in 10 years.
- More sellers are dropping their asking prices. Denver saw a 48% increase in price reductions year over year in May, according to Redfin.
Zoom out: Nationally, mortgage applications were down 24%, and 6.5% of sellers dropped their asking prices each week in June on average, per Redfin’s latest market update.
- Also in June, national pending home sales were down 13% from this time last year — the largest decline since May 2020, Redfin's report stated.
Be smart: Inventory is still critically low overall, which continues to push home prices up.
What to watch: New listings and pending sales. If more listings flood the market this summer and buyers don’t bite, that’s when we would start to see more power shift into buyers' hands.