Denver home prices down 14.5%… depending on how you look at it.

The price of single-family homes in the Denver area has dropped 14.5 percent in the past year, according to a report released Tuesday.

Integrated Asset Services LLC, a Denver-based company that specializes in mortgage services, said the median sales price of detached single-family homes shows a year-over-year decline in all nine census divisions, and was off by 11.6 percent nationally.

Integrated Asset Services looked at home prices in seven Colorado counties, and of those, only Elbert had an improvement over last August’s prices. Homes in Elbert were selling for 8.5 percent more. The decline was steepest in Denver, at 23.2 percent.

Other year-over-year declines: Adams: 19 percent Arapahoe: 13.7 percent Broomfield: 0.5 percent Douglas: 5.5 percent Jefferson: 7.6 percent.

The outlook for home prices is less clear when comparing figures for August 2008 and August 2007. The August numbers show the change from July to August. Nationally, the median sales price was down 0.2 percent compared to a drop of 1.5 percent in August 2007.

In the Denver area, the median figure dipped by 1.7 percent compared to a 1.2 percent decline in August 2007, and three of the Colorado counties showed improvements.

In Adams County, the median price showed neither an increase or decrease, while a year earlier the figure was down by 2.6 percent.

Broomfield homes sold for 6.7 percent more after a 3.5 percent decline in August 2007. Elbert homes were up by 14.2 percent, reversing a 3.1 percent decline a year ago.

But declines were still the story in Arapahoe (1.9 percent versus a 0.1 percent drop), Denver (4.3 percent versus a 1.7 percent fall), Douglas (0.6 percent versus a 0.2 percent gain) and Jefferson (1.3 percent versus a 1.5 percent drop).

Wait a minute… didn’t we just hear a few weeks back that Denver was the second strongest market and appreciating in value according to the July AP/Case-Shiller report?

Yes. And as I previously mentioned, there are multiple reports out there regarding the housing prices and their movement from month to month. As with most any survey or report, the end results are going to be affected by the manner in which the data is collected and ultimately every methodology will vary as well as each reports results.

Understanding the difference between the AP/Case-Shiller and Integrated Asset Services, LLC’s methodology will help clear things up. AP/Case-Shiller actually tracks multiple sales of the same property while Integrated Asset Services. LLC tracks average sales price figures for a given geographic area (typically separated by county). 

While most people would tend to think that the results for these two surveys should be about the same, we have a few factors in our market that have created some separation between their figures. Our local market like most all markets is made up of different neighborhoods and different price points. In the last year or so the lower price points in Denver real estate have been hit the hardest. On top of being saddled with the biggest price declines, the lower price points have also had the highest number of sales as of late. The combination of lower prices and higher volume at the low end of our market has given the overall average sales price a decent hit. 

As I will illustrate soon with our North West Denver market statistics post, many homes in our area have remained steady in value and others have actually appreciated over the last year.

One thing you may have caught already is that I’m comparing the August numbers from Integrated Asset Services, LLC to the July numbers for AP/Case-Shiller. The AP/Case-Shiller report is on a three month lag. Their August figures will be interesting to say the least. I’m optimistic that they will be better than a 14.5% decline but we shall see. The July report for Integrated Asset Services, LLC can be found here.