Builders are Behind by 62k Homes

I wrote 2 weeks ago about a story in the Denver Post about our shortage of homes for sale and the story said we are 32,000 homes and apartments short according to the report’s author. However, I printed out a chart from that story from the state Demography Office which showed the number of new households formed annually in metro Denver and the number of new housing units built that year. This chart tells the WHOLE STORY of our real estate market.

• From 2001 through 2006 builders over built by 59,000 housing units based on our household growth during those 6 years.
• Since 2007 builders have under built by 121,000 housing units!!! For a net shortage of 62,000 housing units this century!
• The state reports that since 2011 we have added over 25,000 new households a year for 6 consecutive years.
• In total metro Denver has grown by 167,000 households from 2011-2016!
• Builders have added just 74k new housing units from 2011-2016. We needed builders to build 167k new housing units!

Supply and demand came into balance in mid-2012 and since then household growth has grown much faster than construction growth. I see this in the Median CDOM in 2012. In January this number was 66 and dropped by over 50% to just 25 days in June and July. And since 2012 our Median CDOM keeps dropping each year as builders get further and further behind.

Here’s a link to the Denver Post story from 2 weeks ago—

Denver’s chronic housing shortage may peak this year with deficit of 32,000 homes and apartments