Colorado’s economy is strong, relatively speaking despite the pandemic, especially if you look at job postings and unemployment claims and this could be fueling our “summer is the new spring” real estate market! According to a new report from the tech career website Dice, tech job postings in the greater Denver area jumped up 36% from May to June, the fourth-highest increase in a major U.S. city. CompTIA and other tech industry reports have indicated that Boulder, the greater Metro Denver area and Northern Colorado have been up-and-coming tech hubs for years. The new Dice report says that the rise of pandemic-related remote work could deliver more opportunity to up-and-coming tech hubs like our area, as technologists can now choose where they live rather than be tied to an office in a city that has lost its appeal to them.
The past week ending July 29th saw the highest sales, new listing and under contract activity compared to the same period in each of the last 3 years. The unprecedented level of under contract activity was up almost 29% over the same week last year, and 25% over the same week in 2018. Sold units were up almost 12% over last year, and new listings were up over 19% from last year.
Less than 44% of all new listings in the last week are in the $300-599K price range, which is one of the lower amounts for the last 18 weeks, while an increased percentage of listings are over $1M at 19%. As usual, the majority of the new listings are in the population centers of Boulder and Longmont, but this week the inventory is particularly skewed to those locations at over 68% of all new listings.
New listing activity this past week was the highest it’s been in the last 6 weeks, up almost 18% from the last week, and the 6 highest amount in the past 18 weeks, with the high occurring the week ending June 17th. By contrast, under contract activity was down 6.6% from the prior week, but still high compared to the same week during the last 3 years.
The number of solds dipped for the 3rd week in a row, but is still strong as this week's number was the second highest in the last 16 weeks and increased 32% from the prior week. Thankfully the number of withdrawns has stayed well below the highs the week of March 31st at the beginning of the stay-at-home orders
The sell-through rate, (the ratio of under contract properties to new listings) while not over 100%, is still in the range that almost all of the new listings were absorbed by strong buyer demand.
So far, it's been quite a ride this year, and our nation and our local area has truly seen its fair share of hurdles. From COVID-19 to record unemployment and the resulting recession, just to name a few, the second quarter of 2020 has had more than a few challenges. Amidst the many roadblocks, however, the U.S. homeownership rate rose again, signaling great strength in the recovery of the housing market and an indication that even in a time of crisis, Americans still feel confident about buying a home. The record-breaking streak of our market’s sell-through rate is a solid indicator of this confidence in action in our local Boulder, North Metro Denver and Northern Colorado area.