Right before the pandemic, about one in 20 homes in metro Denver was valued at $1 million or more, and by January of last year, that figure had risen to more than one in 10, according to a study from real estate brokerage Redfin.
Rising mortgage rates have put downward pressure on home prices, causing that ratio to fall from 10.4% at the start of 2022 to 9.7% of homes at the start of this year, Redfin estimates.
Denver’s slippage of 0.7 percentage points ranks as the ninth-largest drop in the country, but it is modest compared to some of the declines seen further west. San Francisco’s share of $1 million plus homes has fallen from 86.3% to 80.3%, while Oakland’s has gone from 50% to 44.8%. Seattle has gone from 30.9% to 27.5%. San Francisco’s rival for high-priced homes, nearby San Jose, is also seeing slippage, but not as severe, going from 81.7% to 79.2%.
“Home values are coming down from their peak and fewer sellers could fetch seven figures – but that doesn’t mean buyers are getting a break,” said Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao in comments accompanying the report. “The typical homebuyer’s monthly mortgage payment is even higher than it was when home values peaked in the spring because rates are so much higher and although home prices have come down, they certainly haven’t crashed.”
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Somebody buying a $1 million home in January 2022 would actually have a smaller monthly mortgage payment than someone buying an $800,000 home today. Assuming a 20% down payment, current 30-year mortgage rates would put the payment on the lower-value home at $5,241 versus the $5,034 payment on a $1 million home at a 3.5% mortgage rate, Zhao calculates.
In Colorado Springs, the share of $1 million went from 4.4% to 4.2% over the past year. Salt Lake City has gone from 6.3% to 6.2%, while Boise City, Idaho, has fallen from 5.7% to 4.8%. Austin, Texas, has gone from 11.3% to 10.1%.
Some parts of the country are still seeing a jump in the share of million-plus homes, led by Miami, where the share has gone from 11.5% to 14.4% over the past year. North Port, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach are other cities with an increasing share of $1 million homes despite higher mortgage rates.
Several metros still have a ratio of under 1 in 100 homes priced above $1 million. Those include Albany, Rochester and Buffalo, N.Y.; Akron, Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio; Tulsa and Oklahoma City; Pittsburgh; Greensboro, N.C.; Columbia, S.C.; Little Rock, Ark. and Memphis, Tenn.
