Centennial Home Prices Up Over 23%
Here are the 7 county February Sales Data courtesy of REColorado and SMDRA.
· 3,693 properties sold last month, an increase of 2.8% from last February.
· Attached home sales increased by 6.5% year over year to 1,281 sales.
· Detached home sales only increased 0.9% year over year to 2,412 sales.
· 4,572 properties went under contract last month, an increase of 11.6% year over year.
· New listings DROPPED by 8.2% from February 2020 levels to just 4.358 new listings.
· Homeowners listed 1,408 attached homes for sale last month, down 8.7% from last February.
· Homeowners listed 2,950 detached homes for sale last month, down 8% from last February.
· We ended February with a new record low level of inventory of just 1,833 properties for sale!
· Inventory is down 56% from last year!
· This puts months of inventory at a miniscule .49 months.
· Average days in market dropped from 37 days last February to 23 days this year.
· Median days in dropped from 11 days last February to 5 days this year.
· The average closed to original list price ratio was an amazing 101.7%. The first time ever above 100%.
· The average sold price for all property types last month increased by 14.9% from last February to $547,289.
· The average sold price for attached homes rose by 9.6% from a year ago to $400,050.
· The average sold price for detached homes rose by 17.5% from last February to $625,487.
· The median sold price for all property types last month increased by 11.3% from last February to $473k.
· The median sold price of attached homes rose 8.4% to $336k.
· The median sold price of detached homes rose 14% to $526,250. DMAR reported this number increased by 21.8%. That’s a huge difference.
My Thoughts and Comments—
· I read in the DBJ story on the DMAR report that the U.S. Census Report says there are 815k more single-family homes now than in 1985. Still we had fewer than 2,000 homes for sale.
· New listings this year was down from the last 2 years, but at the same level as in 2017 and 2018.
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· I was surprised that detached average home prices didn’t increase by 20% or more, as they “only” rose by 17.5%.
· In the last 4 years the average sold price of a detached home has increased by $177k!!!
· In the last 4 year the median sold price of a detached home has increased by $132k!!!
· Median days in market has been 9 days or less for 12 consecutive months.
· Finally, the average closed to original list price ratio exceeded 100% with detached homes selling for an average of 102.3% above original list price. As I wrote last week the List Price is NOT the Home’s Value.
· The average closed price per square foot for detached homes last month was $298.83 a square foot. I expect this will break $300 very soon.
· The average closed price per square foot for attached homes last month was $278.19 a square foot. I am surprised at how close these 2 numbers are.
Demand is still far out-stripping supply which is falling faster than Rockies fans’ hopes for a winning season. Since the beginning of September we have seen both pendings and solds exceed the number of new listings every week for 6 months now. For our market to return to a sense of “normal” we need to see supply, new listings, exceed pendings and solds for several consecutive weeks.
As I wrote 3 weeks ago I am worried that new listings will not increase like they normally do in the spring due to Covid fears. Maybe they will later this year? The only thing that will slow down demand I believe is higher mortgage rates. If mortgage rates were to hit 4% then demand will probably drop by 25% or more.
As the Stats Committee we have now been keeping track of some important data for 10 metro area cities and this month I will highlight the median closed price in each city last month and how much prices have increased in the last year.
Amazing to see that median prices in Thornton have only increased 1.7% in the last 12 months. I was also surprised to see that Littleton home prices rose by less than 10%. A third surprise for me to see home prices increase so much faster in Castle Rock than in Parker. But, #1 was Centennial with nearly a 25% price increase.