While buyers in the last year have endured historic low inventory levels of homes for sale in metro Denver, there’s a significant amount of new product coming on the market.
Many of those developments were highlighted at the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ New Development Insider event at Empower Field at Mile High Thursday. It was presented by the association’s Young Professionals Network.
“Colorado's lack of inventory has been a major theme, as you all know,” said Vince Malara, sales executive for Heritage Title Company. “We are super excited and inspired to see all the developers and developments here today bringing much needed inventory to Colorado.”
Jason Batchelor, deputy city manager for Aurora, delivered a presentation to attendees about the surge of residential development happening in the city.
“We’re talking over 20,000 planned units coming in,” Batchelor said.
Most of those are coming from large developments underway like Aurora Highlands, Painted Prairie, Green Valley Ranch East and Wendler.
Wendler, a $3.1 billion mixed-use development by GVP Windler LLC with plans for 5,000 homes, is ramping up at 59th Avenue and E-470.
Painted Prairie earlier this year won Community of the Year by the National Home Builders Association.
“We’re very proud of that,” Batchelor said. “It really is an impressive development with great parks, lots of variety of home product from small lot attached product, to alley loaded, to some front-loaded stuff. It’s really a great community out there.”
It has eight builders, including Berkeley Homes, David Weekley Homes, KB Home, Epic Homes, McStain Neighborhoods, Meritage Homes, Remington Homes and Parkwood Homes. More than 3,400 homes are planned at full build out.
“When developers and builders share a collective vision for a community, focusing on the humans who will live there, it frames every discussion, negotiation, and outcome for the neighborhood,” said Chris Fellows, president of Painted Prairie, in a statement. “This mutual trust and shared purpose for the future drives everything we do and enables us to make special places where people want to call home.”
Other developments included:
Under-construction POP Denver is a 123-condominium building at the corner of 6th Avenue and Santa Fe Boulevard.
Clem Rinehart, director of sales and the owner/managing broker of TreeHouse Real Estate, said construction is expected to wrap in May of 2023 and 25% of the units have been pre-sold.
“We’ve got just about every product type,” he said of the one and two-bedroom units ranging in price from “high 300s to high 700s.”
“It’s a concrete construction building, which is different from most of the wood-framed product out there,” Rinehart said. “That’s a huge quality component and brings a differentiator to the market.”
First Stone Development is building Pop Denver, which is being dubbed “The Gateway to the District” with its proximity to the Santa Fe Art District. Plans call for popular muralist Greg Mike of Atlanta to paint “the biggest mural in Denver” at four-stories tall and covering 3,000 square feet.
Down south of metro Denver, rural ranch subdivision Fox Hill near Franktown has enjoyed brisk sales since development started in 2018, said Paige McLaughlin, Re/Max Alliance broker listing homes there.
It’s got an interesting “farm-to-table” living angle, where residents can get fresh produce delivered by the community's farm each week.
There are 92 homes/lots at Fox Hill, and about 85% of the lots are sold. Homes range from $1.5 million to $2.75 million. Builders include Blue Sky Custom Homes, Camerata Homes, Picasso Homes, Sheffield Homes, among others.
“We’ve done more than $100 million in sales since we opened just four years ago,” McLaughlin said. “In terms of lots sold, we’re about 85% sold out. But we still have several pre-sale builds and speculative builds under construction.”
Most of the homes are “eco-friendly” “anchored by a professionally managed sustainable farm and state-of-the-art 1G fiber-optic technology,” according to its website liveinfoxhill.com.
McLaughlin said the pandemic “accelerated buildout.”
“We just exploded with activity,” she said. “COVID has changed the way people work, and many work from home now.”
The majority of Fox Hill residents were drawn to the farm-to-table lifestyle, she said, “and having large acreage home lots with close proximity to city essentials.”
