For quite some time now I have felt that the Denver suburbs were positioned nicely to continue appreciating quite a bit. Overall, Denver is a young city and as millennials started having families, I felt they would start moving towards the suburbs for more space, schools and more of a community feel. However, I felt that this would be a gradual change over a number of years.
Then COVID happens and now there are people moving in flocks to the Denver suburbs. As I mentioned here, we are starting to see the Downtown Denver real estate slow. 80202 zip code (Downtown, Ballpark and Riverfront) is actually a buyer’s market now with a little more than 6 months of inventory.
People are heading to the Denver suburbs looking for more outdoor space, office space and space to homeschool. If you are a current client, I have sent you this map but it’s worth a share to visualize the current shift in the marketplace.
As you can see, the suburbs have a lot of buyer demand (in blue) while the city itself is a bit more sluggish (in red). This is a stark change in demand with the suburbs around C-470 (parts of Arvada, Westminster) and Thornton lead the pack with buyer demand.
What does this mean?
Buyer’s should expect competition in the suburbs (especially the darker blue cities). Sellers continue to have the upper hand and can expect their home to go under contract quickly while buyers compete for it. If you have to buy before selling your home in the suburbs, you will have an easier time buying in a city with less buyer demand (Downtown Denver and cities further out from Denver).
This market continues to be very hot and now the Denver suburbs are getting a cut of an appreciation!
