Real Estate May Be Slow Nationally, But Front Range Buyers Are on a Tear

[Published May 3, 2012, in the Denver Post]

I’m always trying to develop new metrics — new ways of analyzing our local real estate market, especially when what I’m seeing and experiencing here is so different from the picture painted in the national (and Denver) media.

Below are two such metrics that I devised in the last six months. If you look at the changes over time for both metrics, you really get a sense that our market has sprung back to life, despite national reports to the contrary.

Developing such new metrics is made easy by Metrolist, Denver’s MLS, which has created an advanced search capability under “Prime Access” that allows unlimited search combinations.

Here’s another measurement I made just now: Of the 8,028 new listings entered on the three Front Range MLS’s this April, 2,955 or 36.9% were sold or under contract by the end of the same month. Of the 8,162 entered in March, 51% are now under contract or sold.

NOTE: A higher-resolution image of these tables is posted at www.JimSmithColumns.com.

Sellers Answer the Call, With a Surge of New Listing Activity

[Published Mar. 15, 2012 in the Denver Post]

Last week’s headline proclaimed that the percentage of MLS listings under contract had surged past the 40% mark.  Indeed, this Monday, I checked again and the percentage is over 42%.

Fortunately, sellers are responding to the call for them to list their homes now. In Jeffco alone (not counting the foothills areas) 408 new listings were entered on the MLS in the first 10 days of March.  The figure for the total MLS is 2,666 — and 537 of those are already under contract!

For comparison, more homes (3,425) were entered on the MLS during the same 10 days a year ago, but of those only 208 were under contract by the 13th of that month.   We still need to see more homes added to the active inventory.  As of press time, the active inventory was 11,139, up from the beginning of the month, but, as I pointed out above, the percentage of the total inventory that has gone under contract is still rising.

I can’t think of a better time, if you’re thinking of selling this year, to put your home on the market.

Here at Golden Real Estate, that surge in new listings is especially evident.  I have three new listings I’m featuring this week.  I already have two new listings to feature next week and at least one more to feature the following week — so far. I have been invited to meet with would-be sellers — often more than one — almost every day and have been kept busy creating video tours, slideshows, websites, etc.  I know my broker associates are equally busy, and I’m forced to look outside Golden Real Estate to find agents to help me hold open all these new listings on Saturdays.