When reviewing the 2022 home sales data from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors, three numbers stood out that defined the real estate market here: The time it took to sell a home increased six-fold, sales prices inched downward most of the year but basically finished flat from December 2021 and the number of homes on the market more than tripled.
That’s according to the December Market Trends report released Thursday, which included year-end statistics.
“There was a lot to celebrate in 2022 for both buyers and sellers, and it was a year to level the playing field,” according to Amanda Snitker, vice chair of the association’s Market Trends Committee. “After two-and-a-half years of pandemic-driven buyer demand and historically low interest rates fueling record-breaking year, we have started to balance out from the extreme seller market over the past couple of years.”
Sellers listed 4,575 single family homes and condos in December, that’s down 24% from November but up a whopping 222% from the 1,477 in inventory December 2021. The average sale took 43 days on the market last month, that’s up for the 34-day average in November and just 18 days a year ago.
The average sales price finished the year at $637,852, that’s down 2.69% month-over-month. That average is actually up 1.58% from December 2021’s average of $627,923. Looking a median sales price, it finished the year at $554,990, down 1.42% from November and up 1.83% year-over-year.
"Low inventory has kept home values strong, although slightly below the height of the selling peak in 2022," Susan Thayer, Realtor and committee member, wrote in the report. "In May of this year, we hit a yearly high of $616,500 for the median closing price — 11% higher than last month. Even through December's median closed price slipped lower than earlier in the year, sellers were still able to appreciate a growth year-over-year in the value of their homes."
The number of new listings in December stood at 1,735, down from 2,677 new listings in November and down 35% from the new listings in December 2021.
A telling statistic is the close-to-list price ratio. That stood at 98.38%, down 3.09% from the 101.52% at the end of 2021 when almost all final sale prices were above the listing price.
“We entered 2022 in an intense state of high buyer demand, low interest rates with impeding increasing on the horizon and very low inventory, which continued the frenzied multiple offers, over-asking prices sales and wavering contingencies within the contract gifting homeowners a steep 19.19 percent appreciate from January to April,” Snitker wrote in the report. “In March, the Federal Reserve started raising the base Fed rate to slow the economy as inflation hit a 40-year high. By April, the real estate market started to show signs of slowing as buyers saw the mortgage rates increase, reducing their buying power.”
The association uses data from the 11-county metro Denver area when it compiles its Market Trends Report.
