By Peter Mertz
DENVER, the United States, April 30, (Xinhua) -- The Denver real estate market was so hot that home buyers grabbed properties in Denver faster than anywhere else in the United States, according to a new report from real estate brokerage website Redfin, who said Millennials changed the map.
Last month, in only 23 days, homes listed in the Denver metro area were under contact, according to Redfin, a shorter period of time than other highly competitive markets like Seattle and San Francisco.
And the local market was twice as hot as last year. In January 2016, the median number of days on the market in Denver was 43.
"Denver is still young compared to Chicago and Los Angeles, and it doesn't have the same big city problems," Arlene Krauss, a 30-year Re/Max realtor told Xinhua Friday.
"The largest group relocating (to Denver) are Millennials who are looking for a lower cost of living," Krauss said, who holds a number of real estate credentials, citing "weather, jobs, skiing, and the mountains" as incentives to move to Colorado.
In a different desirable market ranking released last week by Trulia.com, 7 of the top 10 metro housing markets listed were in Florida: based on a high search interest and large "population of people happy with the outcome of the presidential election."
Like Colorado, these Florida markets also had a decreasing rate of vacancy, high affordability, and a high rate of job growth, the Trulia report said.
While Florida was known as the 'Sunshine State,' California, Arizona, and Colorado, all report more sunny days each year, without the East Coast humidity and sweltering summers, according to USA Today.
The second "hottest" market in America, according to how fast homes sell, is the Seattle area, even though sunshine is scarce and traffic problems are great.
"We have politicians who reduced the number of traffic lanes on the highway to accommodate bicycles, and that crazy idea just made worse what was already a bad situation," said realtor David Bell, who recently retired to Mexico after 27 years in Seattle.
Bell, considered one of the top realtors in Seattle during the recent boom, relocated to the central Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende, one of the sunniest places in North America, leaving the cloudiest city in America, Seattle, according to CurrentResults.com.
"The Seattle market is still red hot," Bell told Xinhua, who also mentioned Millennial buyers - young, outdoorsy, exercise-minded professionals who want to take advantage of the area' s spectacular scenery and amenities.
Colorado realtors said Millennials come to Denver for the same reasons, and point to jobs and interest in the area from technology, IT, and Renewable Energy firms as explaining why the total number of homes for sale in Denver was down 28.1 percent over last year.
"Inventory, there are just way more prospective buyers than there are properties available," Krauss said. "Homes are selling so fast it's amazing."
"Amazon is building a fulfilment center in Aurora that will have 1,000 full time jobs, and oil and gas is also big," she said. Aurora is a outskirt town of Denver, locating 16 kilometers from the capital of Colorado.
Krauss told Xinhua that 200,000 people relocated to the Denver in 2016, and more were expected this year.
But the Colorado boom won't last forever, industry analysts caution.
Location Inc., a web-based geographic research and real estate data firm, warned that these years of rapid appreciation would shift into a stretch of falling prices starting in late 2019.
The Connecticut-based firm recently predicted that median home prices in Denver in the first quarter of 2022 would be 21 percent lower than in the third quarter of 2019.
Location correctly predicted that Los Angeles and Miami home prices would be hit hard, and that Dallas and Houston would escape declines during the most recent housing downturn, from 2006-2011.
The company's five-year Denver forecast, starting in the first quarter of 2017, predicted a gradual 9.3 percent decline in the region's median home prices, due in large part to a growing gap between wages and home prices.
