Housing Costs in Denver Are Soaring Too

Here in metro Denver the Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed appreciation of 21.3% from July 2020 to July 2021, the highest appreciation rate ever recorded in Denver! ApartmentList reported that September rents in metro Denver rose 2.7% in September from August to September and that rents are up 16.5% from a year ago. Statewide rents are up 17.2% from last September. I talked with a FTHB last Wednesday and he told me his rent will increase in January from $,2200 to $3,000 in Central Park/Stapleton.

Next, some cities are close to becoming primarily filled with rental households as the DBJ looked at the metro Denver data from RentCafe that I wrote about last week. This is based on 2019 data.

·        Wheat Ridge—47% of households are now renters.

·        Englewood—48% of households are now renters.

·        Broomfield—saw rental households increase by 50% from just 20% renter share in 2010 to 30% renter share in 2019.

·        Highlands Ranch and Centennial saw their number of rental households increase by 33% each from 2010 to 2019.

RentCafe estimates that developers will add just 5,581 new apartment units this year, down 46% from last year. This is why rents are already soaring.

Thus, frustrated home buyers who got tired of bidding wars are now experiencing sticker shock on the apartments they rent. Maybe paying an extra $10k to win a bidding war isn’t such a bad idea?