Seasonal Slowdown + More Inventory = Slightly Less of a Seller’s Real Estate Market.
There is a bit of a change in the real estate market in Denver as we start to see more homes on the market. We ended September 2019 with 2,657 homes on the market in Denver while last September 2019 we had 2,378. However, in September we had 1,119 sales while we had 1,032 sales in September 2018. What does this mean? There ARE more homes on the market but there are also more sales. There is still a high demand and now high(er) supply. No, the market isn’t bottoming out, especially with high and consistent demand, however, it does mean there is a change.
Coming off the of the last 5+ years of a very insane (technical term, there) real estate market, this change feels drastic. It can feel like we went from multiple offers, competition, and getting above list price to homes taking longer to sell and actually negotiate, overnight. However, we have seen this shift slowly over the last 18 months. Since this change can provoke feelings of uncertainty and fear, I have found a visual modality often helps explain this change.
This graph shows the number of listings over the last five years. As you can see we have more active listings than we have seen in the last five years. 
Additionally, this graph shows the close price relative to the list price. In past years it was commonplace to receive over list price on a home as multiple offers drew the price up. As you will see, we are starting to see sellers receive less (1-2% less) of list price.
There is certainly a shift occurring in our real estate market and we appear to be heading towards more of a balanced market. Although, right now we have roughly 2 months of inventory on the market. To put it in perspective, for it to be considered a balanced market, we would need 6 months of inventory. Despite rumors, it is certainly not a buyer’s market yet (sorry, buyers!) but seller’s should expect a bit longer for their home sale and to price the home properly and competitively.
