Gellman Homes

December Real Estate Market

I didn’t send a market update last month as we were too busy relaxing on a beach in Mexico. You didn't miss anything; the real estate market is incredibly slow every year in November and December. For December, we saw depreciation of 2.8% and a decrease in active listings of 25%. I would trade that depreciation number for a lower inventory count to start the year.

More importantly though, we now have the market stats for all of 2023, and they prove that the Denver market is resilient. We saw 0.54% depreciation in 2023. This is great considering interest rates increased from 6.5% at the beginning of the year to almost 8% in October. Interest rates dropped in November and December, but the market is too slow for that to have a material impact on buyer demand.

Starting 2024, we are in a great place. Every year, the market picks up in January. There is a lot of pent up demand from buyers who postpone starting their home search until the holidays are over. Inventory is only 214 homes higher than January 2023, so we are in a similar supply position. According to US News, five different experts predict rates to drop in 2024. If we only saw 0.54% depreciation in 2023 when interest rates increased by almost 1.5%, we should see some appreciation when rates (hopefully) decrease this year.

TLDR: Buyers - we generally see all of our appreciation for the year in the first six months. Buy now to capitalize on that and refinance if/when rates drop. Sellers - unless you have a unique property or strict timeline, we should walk your house to make a plan, take the next few months to get your house ready for sale, and sell once we’ve seen the year’s appreciation.