Michael Rush breaks down March 2023 Denver housing data: single-family homes down 7% to $720,000, condos up 6% to $463,000. Inventory is under one month locally. He warns that waiting for lower rates will only bring more competition, as each 1% rate drop could bring five million new buyers nationwide.
Chapters
What's up everyone, Michael Rush here, your Colorado real estate guide, bringing you a market update as we just got the numbers from March, and I want to bring those stats to you and we can dive a little bit deeper into those numbers and see what they mean. Um, Personal consumer expenditures and core PCE, which takes out volatile food and energy prices, those are starting to lower. And as we replace year-over-year numbers, those are going to continue to lower, especially when we get April inflation readings and the months thereafter, which we're going to get those readings on May 10th because they're on a lag effect. So I'll get more into this in a bit, but if you're a buyer that's on the fence right now, Now's the time to buy. You don't want to wait for those interest rates to come down because there's going to be so much more competition in the market. I'm already seeing it right now. We're all seeing it right now. We're seeing appraisal gaps again, over asking price offers. So if you're a buyer, get out there, definitely start writing offers and get into your home. The average price for single-family homes was down 7% year over year, and it's at $720,000. The average price for condos and townhomes rose by 6% year over year, and they're at $463,000. Active listings were up 41% year over year, and they're just up 3% when compared to February. New listings were down 17% year over year, but they're also up 46% when compared to February. Pending sales and market demand are down 13% year over year, But they're up 20% when compared to last month, when compared to February. I think we have interest rates that go down and it's going to bring so much buyer competition back into the marketplace because every 1% that interest rates go lower, 5 million buyers enter the market nationally. And we're low on inventory still. We have less than 3 months inventory nationally and less than 1 month supply here locally in Colorado. So bringing 5 million buyers into the market, even though it's on a national level, Things are going to get very competitive again, and there is not a bubble. There is not a market crash. I have some other statistics that we'll get into that are really interesting about home equity as well. So I if you're going to buy, the time is now. If you're going to sell, the time is also right now or in like the next one to two months. So in the next couple weeks here, I would be getting photography scheduled. I would be getting staging done, touch up paint done. All of those little projects that you wanted to get done, that the time is now. The media is still crying housing crash and market bubble, but that is slowly starting to change as we go deeper into a recession. Interest rates are going to be coming down and it is going to become a much more competitive market. Another important thing to note is that Black Knight's February 2023 Mortgage Monitor was released, and they— once they adjusted for seasonality, the prices are only down about 2.6%. from their peak in 2022. And also another really important fact is that the average mortgage holder still has $178,000 worth of equity on top of having a healthy 20% equity in their home. So there's much, much more equity in houses right now when compared— than compared to 2008. So it's a completely different scenario. It's not a bubble that's going to burst. People aren't upside down on their homes. It's nothing like that. So as I said before, the way to win in this market as a buyer is to buy now. Uh, in my opinion, you can try to compete with other buyers when interest rates come down. That's fine as well. I'll help you any way that I can. Just let me know if you have questions. Again, as a seller, I would be prepping your house to sell now. April is going to be great, May, June, um, but the competition is coming and this is going to be a great time to sell your house. As always, I'm here for you. Any of your referrals, my name is Michael Rush. I'd be happy to help them. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.
