Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Eighty percent. That is the number that jumped out at me when the Colorado Association of REALTORS dropped its September report on October 13.
Eight out of ten Denver metro sales last month came with a price reduction, a seller concession, or both. Let me break that apart. CAR says 49% of September sales had a price cut. 64% included concessions. Stack those together and you land at 80% where the seller gave up something to get the deal done.
That is the whole story this fall. The leverage moved to the buyer, and if you are shopping right now, that changes what you actually pay.
Let me give you the backdrop, because this did not happen in a vacuum.
Statewide, closed sales fell 15.1% year over year in September, per CAR. Pending contracts dropped 10.9%. So fewer people are signing, and fewer people are closing. Here in the Denver metro it is even sharper. Sales were down 18.7% from a year ago. Nearly one in five deals that would have happened last September just did not happen this September.
And here is the thing. Buyers did not disappear because prices got crazy. They pulled back because money got expensive. Mortgage rates climbed from roughly 6.9% to 7.6% across the month of September, per Mortgage News Daily. NerdWallet pegged Colorado's 30-year fixed at 7.24% APR on October 17. So anybody closing this fall is swallowing that jump, and it shows up in what people can afford.
When buyers step back, sellers have to meet them. That is exactly what the September numbers show.
The seven-county Denver metro median landed at $565,000 in September, down 1.7% from a year earlier, per CAR. Active listings fell 10.4%, so inventory is tighter than last year, but it is not tight enough to save sellers.
DMAR put metro-wide inventory at 4.76 months in September. Anything north of about four to six months starts tipping toward a buyer's market, and that is where we are sitting. Their overall median close price slipped to $575,000, and median Days in MLS rose to 32. A month on the market is a long time when you are paying a mortgage on a place you are trying to leave.
Now split it by product type, because this matters a lot depending on what you are buying.
Single-family homes are carrying about 4 months of supply. Tight-ish. Still some competition there. But condos and townhomes are a completely different animal. That segment is sitting at 7.21 months of supply, per DMAR. The condo and townhome median dropped to $375,000, down 6.2% year over year, with 6.4 months of supply and 67 days on market. Sixty-seven days. That is more than two months of a seller sitting there watching showings dry up.
If you want negotiating room, the attached-home market is where the leverage is loudest right now.
So what does this mean for your wallet? Let me use a real example.
Say you are buying a $515,000 home in Aurora. A 3% seller concession on that price is
One thing to keep in mind. On a conventional loan, if your down payment is under 10%, seller concessions are capped at 3% of the price. So you cannot just ask the seller to hand you $40,000 and call it a day. Know your cap before you write the offer.
And this is the part people miss. A price cut and a concession are not the same tool. A price cut lowers your loan balance and your monthly payment a little. A concession hands you cash at the table you can aim wherever it helps most. In a market where 80% of sellers are already doing one or both, the smart play is often asking for both and letting the seller pick their poison.
Here is a snapshot from October 13 that tells you where the pressure is.
Aurora had 723 condos and townhomes listed, averaging
Tired sellers negotiate. That is just how it works.
Look, I am not telling you to lowball every listing in the metro. Single-family at 4 months of supply still has teeth in the right neighborhood. But the data from October 13 is about as clear as this stuff gets. Buyers hold the cards this fall, and the sellers already know it, because four out of five of them gave something up last month.
So if you are writing an offer, ask. Ask for the cut. Ask for the concession. Ask for both and let them counter. The worst they say is no, and in a 4.76-month market, they probably will not.
If you want to run your own numbers on a specific place, that is what we do at Symbio Homes every day. Bring me the address and I will tell you where the leverage actually is.