Higher interest rates, now solidly above 5% on a 30-year mortgage, likely helped slow home sales in metro Denver last month, and the number of listings available is surging. But when it comes to calming those gale-force gains in home prices, the windows are still rattling something fierce.
The number of residential properties available for sale shot up another 44.2% between March and April,, according to a monthly update from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors, which covers an 11-county area. Normally, the gain in listings between March and April averages around 8.6%. Sellers listed 2,445 single-family homes at the end of April, an increase of 50.3% from March and 49% from April 2021. Listings for condos and townhomes ended the month at 759, a 27.8% increase from March, but down 20.4% from a year earlier.
The number of new listings this year is running at about the same pace as seen in 2021 and 2020, and homeowners who locked in a mortgage rate in the 3% range may not be very motivated to swap that out for something above 5% unless they really have to. Inventory gains are coming from fewer sales. Those are down 11.9% year-over-year, even with a nearly 3% gain month-over-month.
Measured annually, average price gains for single-family homes are running at 18.5%. Now take April’s monthly gain and annualize that. Buyers would be facing average home prices 47% higher a year from now. It’s not sustainable and highly unlikely. Something will have to give.