Home sales in metro Denver took an unexpected dip in April, but that didn’t prevent home prices from reaching new highs or temper the frenzy for lower-price properties, according to a report this week from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.
The average price of a single-family home sold in metro Denver reached a new high of $487,974, up 4.2 percent from March and 10.3 percent from a year ago.
“Everything was fairly positive. The only thing that was mildly concerning was the number of sales,” said Steve Danyliw, chairman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and a Denver real estate agent.
Buyers closed on 4,389 residential properties last month, according to Wednesday’s report, down 7.4 percent from the number of homes sold in March and down 4 percent from the same month a year ago.
Danyliw said March marked a healthy jump in the number of homes put under contract. That should have spilled over into a commensurate jump in closings in April, but it didn’t happen.
“Agents are experiencing a higher degree of cancellations and of contracts falling through,” he said. Part of that could reflect offers from buyers that are going above what appraisers are willing to support.
The number of homes and condos available for sale at the end of April rose 8.9 percent from the 5,361 on the market at the end of March, a much larger percentage increase than is usually seen between the two months.
Danyliw said given the current pace of appreciation, the average price of a home sold will soon break the $500,000 barrier.
“We will get there this summer,” he said.
Very expensive properties can skew the average home price. Another way to look at prices is the median, or the point where half the homes sold cost more and half cost less.
The median price of a single-family home sold rose to $420,000, up 4.2 percent from March’s median price of $406,500 and 9.1 percent higher than a year earlier.
Condos prices lost some steam in April, at least compared to single-family homes. The average price of a condo sold in metro Denver rose 0.94 percent to $318,478 from March, while the median price rose 3.85 percent to $270,000.
Over the past year, the average price of a condo sold is up 11.7 percent, while the median is up 12.5 percent.
Homes continue to move quickly on the affordable end of the market, with multiple offers common. Half of new listings sold within eight days last month, and many went faster than that, Danyliw said.
Danyliw listed a north Aurora townhome last month at 11 p.m. on a Friday and hosted an open house at 10 a.m. the next day. An hour after the doors opened, a Realtor who had toured the property with a client handed him a signed contract out of her purse.
It was completed before the buyer had even seen the property. The townhome received seven signed offers, all above list price, by the end of the first day, he said.
