Is the Denver market slowdown here?

[James Carlson]

I was looking at some home price stats from the past few months and it seems like the much talked-about slow-down in the Denver market is upon us. 

Big picture? The past three months have seen flat year-over-year (YOY) growth in sold prices, according to the Denver Metro Realtors Association. And compare those numbers to the crazy YOY growth from the same months in 2018:

2018

• March 2018: 12.5%
• April 2018: 10.9%
• May 2018: 11.4%

2019

• March 2019: 0.6%
• April 2019: 1.8%
• May 2019: 1.5%

We were seeing slower YOY growth over the winter, but not in this range. My thoughts:

• Sellers need to price correctly the first time
  • We're seeing more price drops and days on market. You price too high and your place stays on market too long, you get a stigma and may end up having to drop lower than if you had priced it right in the first place
• Buyer can get more concessions in price and inspection.
  • We love this because we do a lot of work with buyer looking for their home or a house-hacking/Airbnb like property.
• No need to freak out. (This is my editorializing.) 
  • We've been waiting for this slowdown for awhile. We haven't seen anything that says there's an '07/'08 on the horizon. It's more like a correction. 
  • Real estate is a long-term play. (You don't wait to buy real estate. You buy real estate and wait).

That said, I'm sure this is of interest to others. What does everyone else think?

[Matt M.]

We are just moving towards a balanced market, which those who haven't been in the business 10+ years have never seen. We would be moving faster towards it if rates had continued to go up. We are still under 2 months of housing supply. A balanced market has ~6 months supply and 15k+ listings. I think we are around 7k right now. 

I'm still seeing multiple offers on HOT/turnkey properties in good areas. Over ask offers are still happening, but not as much.