Denver Foreclosure Crisis Grabs Headlines
Researchers analyzing housing data from Denver’s seven counties reports that in the first quarter of this year foreclosure listings have gone up by 33% compared to the previous year. The apprehension is that, despite efforts to stem the tide, figures will fall further as the year rolls on.
Foreclosures are a challenge and curse to the low and middle-income group. Due to an over supply of under priced foreclosure properties the sellers are not getting a proper offer. On the other hand with less money the chances of buying another shelter become slim.
Sales of newly built houses decreased by 39% compared to first quarter last year. Most sales came from single-family detached or standard homes. In this group sale is dropped by 42%. Sales of new attached homes – that is condominiums, townhouses and duplexes etc went down by 34%. House builders had on their list 3,488 unsold new houses during the first quarter. This indicates a 6% upswing from the previous year.
The rise was from attached housing. Detached housing lists showed a fall by 17% – that is 1,264 houses. The supply of these houses has increased from 3.5 per month last year to 5.2 this year. License for for-sale housing is dropped by 45% during the first three months of this year. The figures quoted are 52% for detached housing and 27% for attached ones.
Specifically sales of present detached houses fell by 7% during the first three months from previous year. Sales of present attached houses fell by 3%.
On an average the selling value of existing detached homes fell by 4.8% – the amount being $290,268. For attached houses the average selling price fell by 3% – the amount being $176,889.
Detached homes are selling for less than $150,000 – that is a sales rise to an astonishing 52% during the first three months of the year. Attached homes are selling for less than $125,000 – an increase of 13%.
The sum total of this trend is that the excess supply of existing houses in the market remains critical during first quarter with a 5.9 per month supply as compared to 5.7 in the previous year. Single-family units supply fell to 0.7% compared to last year. In a nutshell it may be said that the Denver market continued in its spate of recovery during the last five years during the first quarter of this year with a vacancy rate of 7.1%
