Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Eight months. That is how long the top of the Denver market is sitting right now.
Think about that for a second. A home priced over
Here is the thing. If you only read the top-line number, you would miss all of this.
DMAR, the local Realtor association that represents over 8,000 agents across the metro, just dropped its October 2026 Market Trends report. The Denver Gazette covered it on November 5. The number everyone grabbed was the median home price. $595,000. That is almost 3.5% higher than a month earlier.
Prices up. Great. Story over, right?
No. That median is doing a lot of hiding.
Break it apart and it is still pointing up. The median detached home (that is your standalone house with a yard) rose about 1.5% over the month to $645,000. The median condo and townhome climbed almost 3% to $375,000. Active inventory across the 11-county metro actually fell roughly 4% over the month, down to 12,987 homes. So fewer homes for sale, prices ticking up. Classic seller's market behavior.
Except that is the middle and the bottom of the market talking. The top is telling a completely different story.
Most people do not realize how much the luxury tier has quietly separated from everything else. While the median was marching up, homes over
And you can see it in the concessions.
65% of homes that sold in October involved a seller concession. Not a third of them. Not half. Almost two out of three. The average concession came in at
Amanda Snitker, who chairs DMAR's Market Trends Committee and works as a Serhant agent, put it plainly. Concessions have become, and I am quoting her here, "a routine part of the negotiation rather than an exception."
Let that land. Routine. Not a Hail Mary from a desperate seller. The normal cost of doing business now.
Now here is what has a lot of agents scratching their heads. The prices are holding anyway.
One agent told the Denver Gazette he is "shocked the market hasn't really depreciated," and honestly, given the math, I get the shock. Mortgage rates went from 2.5% to roughly triple that. Triple. In most markets that kind of move flattens prices like a pancake. Denver just keeps clinging to its numbers.
The rate picture did ease a touch, though. As of Sunday, November 8, the average 30-year fixed in Colorado was about 6.84% APR, down from above 7% earlier in the fall, per NerdWallet. That little bit of relief matters more than it sounds, because every tenth of a point changes what a buyer can actually afford.
But nationally, the pattern is the one working against sellers. Far fewer buyers than sellers right now, with the higher rates taking their toll. Denver is just holding its price tags up longer than most while that imbalance works through the system.
So picture the Cherry Creek North home that was sitting on the market at
If you are the high-end seller, the lesson is the opposite and it stings. The eight months of inventory is not a fluke, and the
Quick housekeeping on the data, because it matters. DMAR's numbers cover 11 counties: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin, Jefferson and Park. So when I say "the top of the metro market," that is a real, wide footprint, not one hot pocket skewing everything.
Here is where I land on it. The median going up is real, and the luxury tier softening is also real, and both things are true at the exact same time. That is the part people miss when they read one number and walk away. If you are shopping above