Northwest Denver Market Statistics for February 2009

And now for a look at the Northwest Denver market Statistics for the month of February 2009. 

Some general info regarding our statistics: all data is courtesy of Metrolist, Incorporated. Metrolist does not guarantee nor is in any way responsible for its accuracy. Aside from the disclaimer, we are looking at residential statistics for the DNW (Denver North West) market area within Metrolist’s system. Residential properties can be detached single family residences, duplexes, or triplexes. Anything with more than three units or a HOA (home owners association) isn’t going to be captured here. We’ve put together a list of the actual sold properties for your reference as well.

Average Net Sales Price

As I had guessed might be the case, we had a temporary spike in average net sales price for DNW in the month of January. There are a number of potential factors at work here. The biggest one was that a few high end homes ($750,000+) sold and closed in January. Having more than one of these sales post in one month is going to have an impact on our numbers. This is magnified as our total number of sales continues to be low for DNW. Another factor is that there was a temporary shortage in low end bank owned properties coming on the market for January. I have heard from a few sources that many of the asset managers for the major banks were in a holding pattern with regards to the government’s housing plans and thus were sitting on inventory hoping that things such as the first time buyer tax credit might help boost sales prices. With the housing plan in place the banks are letting back inventory into the market. I would expect to see a higher number of low end homes becoming available as we move into the next few months. Only time will tell but there is a good chance that the typical resale market will pick up and balance out the low end REO sales starting in March thus keeping our average sales price pretty steady. From a year over year perspective, I would note that the average net sales price has remained relatively flat. All things considered this is not such a bad thing.

 Number of Properties Sold

Our sales volume continues to decline. While only nominally lower than last month we are about 40% lower than this time last year with regards to to the actual number of homes selling per month. Looking forward I would think that the numbers are going to remain low until consumer confidence comes back. Getting the fear factor removed from the general public’s heads is going to be quite the task given the beating that has been going on now for the last 5 months.

Distribution of Properties Sold by Price Range 

Nothing very notable here. The strength of our market continues to be the $200k – $300k price point. We can vouch for buyer traffic being concentrated in this range based on showing traffic of our own listings across the price spectrum.

Average Days on Market

It seems as though we’ve remained steady in days on market for the first time in the past year from January to February. The 80 days on market where we currently sit is about the average of the past year as you can see from the graph.