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Price drop for homes not as bad in Denver : Real Estate :
The Rocky Mountain News


It may be small consolation if you bought a home in the Denver area at the top of the market, but the local residential real estate market is in far better shape than almost any other major metropolitan area in the country. The most recent S&P/Case- Shiller report showed that Denver-area home prices were down 5.2 percent in the 12
months ending in October, compared with an average 18 percent drop for the 20 cities in the index. Bauer said dismal economic news, including pending and recent layoffs, is delaying a recovery. Many people fear losing their jobs and don’t want to risk buying a home at this time, he said Denver-area home prices plunge a record 13% in 2008

: Real Estate : The Rocky Mountain News

Home sales volume in the Denver area plummeted by more than $2 billion in 2008 from the previous year. The precipitous drop was fueled by average home sale prices, which fell a record 13 percent from 2007. It is only the second time in recent memory that home prices have dropped year to year. The first time was in 2007,
when prices fell 2 percent from the previous year. “I’m seeing sellers knock $150,000 or $170,000 off the asking price because their backs are against the wall,”
said Chris Behrens, a principal of the Denver- based UrbanThrive Group.
Buyers closed on only 47,837 homes in 2008 - the lowest level since 2001 - for a total of $11.9 billion in sales.


Denver homes lose 5.2 percent : Real Estate : The Rocky Mountain News
The Denver-area housing market, although still showing an overall drop in housing prices, greatly outperformed the nation as a whole, according to the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday. The report showed that Denver-area home prices lost an average of 5.2 percent from October 2007 to October
2008. Only the 3 percent drop in Dallas and the 4.4 percent decline in Charlotte, N.C., were better during that period. The report tracks most of the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the country.


Picking the next “hot” neighborhood - The Denver Post
What to look for: How to find Denver’s real estate boom areas, according to local agents:Barbell theory: Look between two hot neighborhoods, Paul Tamburello says.

HEADLINES
Distressed property: Owner-occupied houses hit the market at the bottom, and Lon Welsh says that pushes prices back up. Follow the risk-takers: Tamburello says the art and gay communities tend to be the first into a burgeoning area. Or the portable toilets: Dee Chirafisi looks for renovation projects as an indicator. Gretchen Faber says areas nearby get caught in the upswing.


Area fares well in U.S. home-price downdraft - The Denver Post
Denver’s home prices held steady in October, while much of the rest of the country fell faster than ever, according to a closely watched 20-city index released Tuesday.
Denver’s 5.2 percent drop from last October was the third-lowest among the surveyed cities, behind Dallas at 3 percent and Charlotte, N.C., at 4.4 percent, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of home prices. The index reported an 18 percent dive nationally over the previous year, marking 22 consecutive months
of price drops.


Denver’s home-resale market shows signs of life - The Denver Post
Median single-family home prices rose between November and December, from $195,000 to $196,000, but remain down from the median price of $220,000 in December 2007. Median condo prices in December were $125,000, down from $130,000 in November and $140,000 in December 2007. The type of properties sold influences the median price of resale homes. In a weak market, fewer expensive homes tend to get listed, while foreclosures make lower-priced homes a bigger part of the mix, driving prices
down.


Denver-area home sales up a bit, but prices drop - Denver Business Journal:
Denver-area home sales were up slightly in December from a year earlier and there were fewer unsold homes on the market, but sales prices declined, a real estate analyst reported Wednesday. In December 2008, sales of 3,234 homes closed, up half a percent from the 3,219 residential properties that closed in December 2007, according to the monthly report by analyst Garold Bauer, based on the Metrolist Inc.
real-estate database. Throughout 2008, 47,837 housing units sold in the metro area, down 3.92 percent from the 49,789 units sold in 2007, Bauer said. Year-to-date homes under contract for sale actually increased — by 1.9 percent to 59,361 from 58,262