Under Contracts SOAR

Here are the results for our 7 metro county real estate sales report for January from REColorado. Please know that this report courtesy of SMDRA does NOT include the counties of Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin and Park unlike the DMAR report.

• Buyers and sellers closed on 2,983 properties last month, a 7% increase from last year.
• Attached homes saw a huge increase of 18% year over year.
• New listings increased by only 1% year over year and all of this increase was in attached homes which increased 5.4% year over year.
• In total we had 4,535 new listings in January.
• Detached new listings dropped by 1% in January from the previous January.
• Pendings or under contracts were up an astonishing 22.4% from January 2019 as buyers placed 4,577 properties under last month. WOW. This is nearly a March number.
• Average overall sales price was up 3% year over year to $464,409.
• Attached home sales prices dropped 1.5% though and detached average prices rose 5.7%.
• The median overall sales price was up 5.1% year over year to $415k.
• Detached homes' median price increased by a large 6.9%.
• Attached homes' median price increased by just 4.4%.
• Average days on market was 44 up by 2 days from last year.
• Median days on market dropped by 2 days from last year to 25.
• We ended January with a measly 4,055 properties for sale.
• This puts months of inventory at 1.36 months.
• But, we had more homes go under contract last month than were available for sale at the end of the month. This should not be!!!
• Thus days on market and months of inventory should both drop sizably in February.
• In the all-important mid-price range of $200k to $600k here is what I see-
• 78.4% of our closings were in this price range
• 73.4% of our new listings were in this price range
• Only 57.2% of our active listings at the end of the month were in this price range.
• As I have been saying for over a year we would be selling more homes if we had more homes under $600k to sell.
• My Thoughts and Observations-
• The Pendings or Under Contracts number last month was record-breaking and amazing!!!
• In fact we had more Under Contracts in January than we did last October.
• We also had more Under Contracts than new listings!!!
• January under contracts or pendings averaged 3,567 for the years of 2016, 2017, and 2018. This year's number was a 1,010 MORE or an increase of 28% from our 3 hottest years of Denver real estate. Let that number sink in!
• The numbers for attached homes are unique-sales numbers up by 18%, averages prices dropped by 1.5% and median prices rose by 4.4%. The only thing I can decipher is that a lot of buyers purchased affordable attached homes last month which drove up the median prices and there were few high-end attached homes that sold last month as the average price dropped.
• It's always good to see median prices rising faster than average prices. Why? It's the low to middle end of the market driving up prices. This is why I follow median prices more than average prices.
• Still, I was a little surprised to see median detached prices up nearly 7% year over year already.
• New listings in January were the highest level we have seen in the last 5 years. Still, we had more Under Contracts!
• Closings in January were 2nd best of the last 5 years. Only 2017 was better.
  Closings in February should be at a record high level and I fully expect to see large price increases as nearly every one of my buyers is experiencing Bidding Wars this year.
• I may have to start teaching my class from 6 years ago on "How to Win Bidding Wars" for the new "generation" of agents.