There will be an open house of the 5,683-square-foot home at 2705 Beeler St. in Stapleton from noon until 6 p.m. this Saturday. It is priced at $895,000. Source: REColorado.com
It wasn’t just the weather that was hot in July.
“The Denver housing market was hot, hot, hot,” said independent broker, Gary Bauer.
Bauer, on Thursday, released a report on July that showed the number of contracts on homes sold by Realtors in the Denver area rose by 23.2 percent last month from July 2011.
Closings, meanwhile, rose by 20.4 percent.
Bauer based his report on Metrolist data that showed 5,236 homes were placed under contract last month, compared with 4,250 in July 2011.
There were 4,818 home closings last month, compared with 3,835 in July 2011.
Home activity did drop off a bit from June, which for seasonal reasons is typical, Bauer said.
There were 5,363 contracts written in June, 2.4 percent more than in July, while there were 4,904 homes closed in June, a 5.8 percent more than in July.
The slight downward shift in sales is a natural, cyclical occurrence, said Kirby Slunaker, president and CEO of Metrolist.
“Fall is just around the corner and we’ve hit the typical season drop off with sales 6 percent under last month,” Slunaker said.
“This drop is tracking right along with 2011 figures,” he added. “In addition, the number of homes that were under contract at the end of July indicates that we may see another decline in units sold next month, but this is nothing to worry about and is attributable to seasonality.”
Peter Niederman, president and CEO of Kentwood Real Estate, said early indicators in July signaled that activity could have been much slower.
“As I told you before, early in July showings were off about 20 percent,” Niederman said. “Home showings are a leading indicator of where the market is headed. With a 20 percent drop in showings and only about a 2 percent drop in contracts and less than a 6 percent drop in closings, those are great, solid numbers.”
The number of days on market in July fell 35 percent to 64 from 99 and were down almost 10 percent from June.
The average price of a single-family, detached home sold in July was $312,920, 3.6 percent lower than the $324,497 in June, but 4.7 percent higher than $$296,654 in July 2011.
The median price of a single-family home in July was $259,000, compared with $237,000 a year earlier and $269,500 in June.
The month-over-month price drop was due to the mix of homes being sold, Bauer said.
Meanwhile, there were only 10,827 unsold homes on the market in July, marking a 12-year low for unsold inventory in a July.
Inventory levels were down 38.4 percent from July 2011, when buyers had 17,583 homes to choose from. Inventory levels were down almost 1 percent from the 10,925 in June.
“What is amazing is that for every home that was added to the market, there is almost a one-to-one relationship to the number of homes sold,” Bauer said.
Niederman said when you combine the low inventory numbers with the lowest mortgage rates on record, consumers who buy today will be very happy with their purchases down the road, while those who do not take advantage of these conditions will be kicking themselves for an opportunity lost.
Calling them historically low rates doesn’t do them justice, Niederman said.
“These are not historically low rates, they are the lowest rates ever,” Niederman said.
And as hot as the market was, there might even have been more buyers if it was a little less hot outside, Bauer and Niederman said.
“On a personal level, everything I did seemed to take a little bit longer because it was so hot outside,” Bauer said. “I know I am getting older, but it just seemed that the heat sapped me a bit more and I didn’t quite have the energy I normally have. I think we might very well have sold a few more homes if wasn’t quite so hot outside.”
And Niederman noted that because July 4th fell on a Wednesday, consumers may have been on vacation on either side of the holiday, reducing the number of people available to buy homes.
Have a story idea or real estate tip? Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com. InsideRealEstateNews.com is sponsored by Universal Lending, Land Title Guarantee and 8z Real Estate.
[...] July Denver Market Report 2012 Posted on August 4, 2012 by admin It wasn’t just the weather that was hot in July. “The Denver housing market was hot, hot, hot,” said independent broker, Gary Bauer. Bauer, on Thursday, released a report on July that showed the number of contracts on homes sold by Realtors in the Denver area rose by 23.2 percent last month from July 2011.Closings, meanwhile, rose by 20.4 percent… To read the full artical by Inside Real Estate News click here. [...]