Metro Denver home prices increased by $94 per day for a decade, study says


Coloradans with the good fortune to have owned a home in 2011, and with the foresight to have held onto it, reaped some of the biggest home value gains in the country outside of California, according to a study from Point2Homes.com, a real estate portal.

Point2Homes studied home price gains across 187 metros between 2011 and 2021, converting that increase into an average daily gain for each metro. Two Colorado metros — Boulder and Denver — made the top 10 for daily gains, while Fort Collins and Colorado Springs were leaders in the total increase in mid-sized metros.

“Boulder is one of only eight metros where prices increased by more than $100 every day, for 10 years. What’s more, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins also made the top 10 mid-sized metros that saw the largest increases in home prices compared to 2011, with 10-year additions of $245,700 and $264,820, respectively,” said Andra Hopulele, a senior Point2Homes writer.

Boulder ranked seventh overall in the country with home equity gains averaging $107 a day and it ranked second among mid-sized metros after Naples, Fla., where prices rose on average $117 a day. Boulder home prices rose from $353,100 to $782,700, a 121% gain in 10 years, based on home price numbers from the National Association of Realtors.

Metro Denver ranked 10th among the 187 metros, with an average daily gain in home prices of $94 a daily and a price increase from $231,400 to $607,100, representing a gain of 162.4%. The study didn’t cover the first half of 2022 when prices soared even faster. Hopulele said the index the study used puts Denver’s typical home price at $695,800 as of June 30.

Detroit had the biggest percentage gain in home prices of any metro studied at 356.6% after a run-up in prices from $53,800 to $245,700. While impressive, the starting point was low and the average daily gain was $48.

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In-demand markets that started with high home prices had the biggest average daily gains. The four were all California metros — San Jose, San Francisco, Anaheim and Los Angeles — where average daily gains ran from $266 to $123. But some high-priced markets in 2011 fell behind, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“Even currently, Colorado is a seller’s market, with demand far exceeding supply, and this is the main reason why prices have been going up at such a dizzying pace,” Hopulele said.

The state has a strong concentration of millennials who are reaching the age where they want to buy a home and the state found itself a popular destination with remote workers, she said. The pandemic also drove more homeowners to try an upsize in a market where new construction was hampered and unable to keep up with demand.

“The low interest rates distorted the market to quite a significant degree, especially since they blunted the sting of the fast-increasing home prices. Now, the growing interest rates, cumulated with record-high home prices have forced many buyers to simply put their buying process on hold to see what happens next,” Hopulele said.

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