John Rebchook is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter with more than 30 years of experience in writing and communications... The median price of a single-family home in the Denver area that closed last December jumped by 14.1 percent from December 2008, according to data from the National Association of Realtors released today to InsideRealEstateNew.com.
The median, or middle, price of a home jumped to $224.800 last month from $197,800 in December 2008. The percentage increase was the largest of at least other metropolitan statistical areas tracked by the NAR. Unlike the S&P/Case-Shiller report that will be released on Tuesday, the NAR report does not include only major markets. It also includes markets such as Pittsburgh and San Antonio, for example.
Sales volume, however, dropped by 10.2 percent in the Denver area. Only Indianapolis, with a 13.1 percent decline, showed a bigger percentage drop, according to the data released by NAR.
Denver was not on the list, but the information it compiles for the Denver MSA was released to InsideRealEstateNews.com.
“I can give you unpublished data on Denver,” said NAR spokesman Walter Molony. He said the NAR publicly released month-over-month data on various cities depending on the sample size of the MSA and how comfortable NAR felt with the data. The NAR also noted that their data may show different results than local data because of geographic areas and housing types included. An earlier report by independent broker Gary Bauer, based on Metrolist data, showed a slightly smaller percentage increase in the median price of a single-family home sold. Bauer’s report showed the median price of a single-family home closed in December at $221,000, up 13 percent from December 2008.
Molony also cautioned about reading too much into monthly data for any metropolitan area.
“Month-to-month data can be quite volatile,” Molony said. “We prefer quarterly data. We will be releasing quarterly data on Feb. 11. That will be more in-depth and you should find that more valuable.”
When I told Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Colorado, about the data, he noted that is a bit of a higher December vs. December 2008 gain, based on local Metrolist figures.
He said the increase last month was due to the mix of homes being sold. For most of 2009, so many distressed properties were being sold that they were driving down the overall average and median prices, he said.
“It is interesting,” Mygatt said about the NAR data. “We know in the last four months we have been seeing some increases in the average price of a sold homes.”
But he said that is a trend that may not last.
“If you look at the big picture in Denver, we know that banks are sitting on a record number of homes that are not being listed on the market and are not currently being sold,” Mygatt said. “That has resulted in a decreasing inventory and when demand came on strong, we saw prices at the lower-end move up, along with some movement at the upper end. What I really fear is when and how this ”shadow market” of unsold homes held by the banks are delivered to the market. If they let them out one at a time, by dribs and drabs, it won’t have much of an impact. But if all of a sudden they drop thousands of homes on the market, we are going to be in trouble. That will cause a big drop in prices.”
| MSA | Median Price December 2008 | Median Price December 2009 | Percent change in price | Percent change in sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | $120,100 | $122,000 | 1.6% | 14.8% |
| Baltimore | $256,800 | $247,500 | -3.6% | 16.0% |
| Boston | $327,700 | $363,200 | 10.8% | 14.6% |
| Cincinnati | $106,000 | $118,400 | 11.7% | 3.2% |
| Dallas | $138,500 | $141,200 | 1.9% | 4.9% |
| DENVER | $197,000 | $224,800 | 14.1% | -10.2% |
| Houston | $145,700 | $148,500 | 1.9% | 4.9% |
| Indianapolis | $95,800 | $108,100 | 12.8% | -13.1% |
| Kansas City | $125,800 | $132,300 | 5.2% | -2.5% |
| Miami/Ft. Lauderdale | $223,000 | $202,900 | -9.0% | 30.2% |
| Minneapolis | $167,000 | $162,000 | -3.0% | 8.9% |
| New Orleans | $152,700 | $152,800 | 0.1% | 13.3% |
| New York | $382,000 | $387,600 | 1.5% | 28.4% |
| Philadelphia | $211,200 | $213,600 | 1.1% | 3.1% |
| Phoenix | $146,200 | $144,200 | -1.4% | 12.1% |
| Pittsburgh | $102,100 | $114,400 | 12.0% | 2.0% |
| Portland | $253,600 | $241,900 | -4.6% | 52.6% |
| San Antonio | $141,200 | $148,300 | 5.0% | 8.3% |
| San Diego | N/A | $381,900 | N/A | 7.1% |
| St. Louis | $105,500 | $95,700 | -9.3% | -3.4% |
| Washington, D.C. | $289,800 | $310,200 | 7.0% | 3.9% |
Source: National Association of Realtors
Contact John Rebchook at JRHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Wood, Bruce Swedal. Bruce Swedal said: Exclusive: Home prices soar 14%: Denver-area home prices soared by 14%, shows NAR data obtained by InsideRealEs.. http://bit.ly/4smBKm [...]
[...] median, or middle, price of a home jumped to $224.800 last month from $197,800 in December 2008. http://insiderealestatenews.com/2010/01/exclusive-home-prices-soar-14/ 39.558244 [...]
A lot of REO dumped on the market will have almost no effect on the price of property that is good shape, because Most REO property is unloanable to end users because of the condition. Bank property will be bought by people like me, rehabbed, and sold. The spread between fix up property and fixed up propery will just widen.
My guess is Tom's right. I've been in a couple of REO's that brokers are asking me to compare my new homes to. They were not maintained, the landscaping was overgrown, and some of the appliances were missing. I had to educate the brokers!! http://holbenhomes.com
[...] we saw double-digit declines of home prices a few years ago, that was due to selling many small, nasty REO homes. Nicer homes were not selling. That change in mix drove most of the price decline. We’re [...]