A year ago in September, it took 15 days on average for a home to go under contract in metro Denver, according to Zillow. Last month, homes took only six days to find a buyer.
Entry-level homes were snapped up in just four days on average, and even the most expensive homes, which can linger, took only 10 days to find a buyer.
Metro Denver’s market has run this hot before, but always in the spring and summer, not at the start of fall when the kids are already back in school.
“Normally, the housing market begins to slow down around this time of year as the weather cools and buyer activity fades, but it’s 2020, and nothing is normal this year,” said Zillow senior economist Chris Glynn in his report. “Instead of slowing down, we’re seeing the housing market continue to speed up as autumn continues.”
Nationally, homes spent an average of 16 days on the market, a significant improvement from last year. And as fast as homes are moving in metro Denver, it isn’t the speediest market. The ones that are may come as a surprise.
Homes in Kansas City, Mo.; Columbus, Ohio, and Cincinnati all took only four days on average to go under contract. Entry-level listings in Cincinnati were claimed within two days, the time that Amazon Prime strives to deliver packages in.
“With many people re-examining their housing situation during the pandemic, relatively affordable metros are often moving more quickly because barriers to homeownership are lower for prospective buyers,” Glynn in an email.
Renters can scrape up the downpayment more easily in more affordable markets. After sitting atop what seemed like a bottomless supply of unwanted homes for sale, the housing inventory in Midwestern cities is tightening up in a big way.
“Inventory is well below where it was last year across the country, and it’s down even more in the Midwest metros that are currently moving the fastest, another reason buyers would need to strike quickly on homes that catch their eye,” he said.
Does that mean former metro Denver residents are trading their Broncos jerseys for ones from the Chiefs, Colts or Bengals? The tight market here suggests an exodus is not underway, at least among homeowners. And the Urban Land Institute in its Emerging Trends in Real Estate report for 2021 continues to rank Denver as one of the six favorite boomtowns when it comes to attracting young workers.
Zillow does offer up an interesting tidbit though. In July 2019, 0.9% of the page views on Zillow of Kansas City area homes came from searchers based in the Denver area. This July, 3.7% of the viewers snooping around in Kansas City were based in metro Denver. Moving no, but looking, maybe.
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