Northwest Denver Market Statistics for July 2009

We’re back with DNW market statistics for July. As always this market data is courtesy of Metrolist, Inc. and includes only residential properties (single family detached and attached duplex or triplex listings with no HOA).

Average Net Sales Price

We’re trending in the wrong direction here but not as severely as late 2008 and early 2009. If anything, this graph shows how wild a ride we’ve been on for thepast 12 months. I’m suspecting this fall’s sales activity will be strong in the sub $300,000 market as many potential first time home buyers scramble to take advantage of the federal tax credit before it expires on November 30th. We will see what comes moving forward with average net sales price but historically August is the peak for the year and prices will come down a bit till early 2010.

Number of Properties Sold

Finally a trend we can work with. This graph shows how we tend to peak in number of homes sold in late summer. Of all the market data we’ve been tracking since 2008 this has been the one metric that has more or less behaved as one would imagine. It is noteworthy that there is little evidence of a pronounced lag in sales volume in Northwest Denver as we moved into our spring selling season. We’re at about 90% of the volume we were seeing in July of 2009… not all bad considering the financial world was collapsing in late September last year.

Average Days on Market

More craziness with regardsto average days on market. At some point this may become a trend worth using in analyzing our market but it has been very unpredictable and of little use in the past 12 months. Some smoothing of the data points might lead one to conclude that we’re in a stable market with an average DOM of 80 days and floating within a 20 day range plus or minus.

Distribution of Properties Sold by Price Range

A look at this graph will show you why average net sales price is down for July compared to June. While we had a few high end sales we had twice as many sub $100k sales as $500k plus sales. The middle of our market continues to be strong. Something has to give soon with regards to the high end of our market. Inventory is piling up and while new builds are fewer and fewer we have a very slow absorption rate for the high end of things.

A Look Ahead

As mentioned previously, I’m predicting a robust fall for sales activity in the sub $300k market segment for Northwest Denver through November due to the expiration of the $8,000 federal tax credit. Optimistically we’ll see some trickle up activity as the sellers of the entry level homes upgrade. Interest rates are still under 5.5% and the larger economic picture is starting to look a bit better for the longterm. Barring any unforeseencrisis I would expect that we’ll settle in to a relatively stable market starting this fall. Till next month.