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Study: Denver home values fall slower than U.S. rate

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Denver continues to buck the national trend of home values plummeting by record levels, according to a report released Tuesday.

Denver was the second-best-performing city of the 20 cities tracked by the S&P/ Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, both in the one-year period that ended in July and in the one-month period from June to July.

Denver home prices dropped 4.7 percent in the one-year period, while the overall drop for the 20 metropolitan areas was 16.3 percent. The worst-performing market was Las Vegas, where homes experienced a 29.9 percent fall.

Only Charlotte, N.C., showed a smaller drop than Denver, where single-family homes lost 1.8 percent of their value.

And from June to July, home prices in Denver gained 0.8 percent. A 1.3 percent increase in Minneapolis was the only better-performing market during that period.

On a consecutive month basis, Denver has shown an increase every month since March. Prices rose 0.8 percent from March to April and 1.5 percent from May to June.

"That is very accurate," said Deborah Barela, a broker associate with Prestige Real Estate Group. "That is what we see out here."

Keil Steck, of HTT Realty, said home sales activity seems to be picking up, especially for foreclosed properties.

While banks had been dragging their feet about responding to offers for foreclosures, they started being more aggressive about pricing homes below the market, as well as getting back to prospective buyers quickly.

At least until the financial turmoil on Wall Street brought on by the lack of approval for $700 billion bailout, stalled banks decision-making again.

"But hopefully, that all will be taken care of" in the next few days, Steck said.

Steck said he recently showed a client a bank-owned, 1,700-square-foot homes in Green Valley Ranch that was priced below $100,000.

"As I recall, I think it had sold for about $235,000 at one time," Steck said. His client passed on buying the house, and he checked on it the next day and it was already under contract.

Independent broker Gary Bauer said that the stock market's record drop Monday - followed by a big gain on Tuesday - won't have an immediate impact on the Denver-area housing market.

Bauer said he predicts that Denver's month-over-month percentage gains for homes will come to a halt in August, but that the Denver area will still continue to do better than most of the rest of the country, especially the hard-hit areas such as California, Florida and Nevada.

"From my perspective, this is one of the best times to buy homes, because I do not see them getting any cheaper," Bauer said.

Comments

  • October 1, 2008

    7:24 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    WarrenJimmyBuffett writes:

    "From my perspective, this is one of the best times to buy homes, because I do not see them getting any cheaper," Bauer said.

    I think I've read this exact quote 10,000 times over the last 10 years. What is it with the real estate industry? They all repeat the same thing over and over. I believe they think if they say it enough, it will come true. Maybe they should start saying, "There is no severe recession/depression coming. The banking industry is fundamentally solid. Jobs are not being lost. The stock market is fundamentally sound. It is easy to get credit. Gas prices are low. The typical American family is better off financially than they were last year."

  • October 1, 2008

    3:42 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jlgraybill writes:

    Yeah, more spin from the Pollyanna Gary Bauer. If you believe what he says about this being one of the best times to buy a home, you may want to take note of other things he said:

    February 2008:
    "Really, what I'm hoping for is that 2008 is going to be straight flat from 2007 - I'm looking for no price decreases and about the same number of sales," Bauer said.
    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...

    November 2007:
    "The fourth quarter is going to be the lowest we've seen in a while and lower than last year," Bauer said. "But I don't see any big bubble."
    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...

    May 2007:
    "We are not going to see any decline," Bauer said. "Overall, it is going to be a flat market, although there will be some hot individual neighborhoods."
    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...

    December 2006
    "I think next year is going to be slightly better than this year," Bauer said."
    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...

    And that's just from a quick search of the articles the Rocky Mountain News lets me view. Is it a surprise that John Rebchook is the author in all of these articles? He must be a realtor on the side.