In Denver, Colorado, it’s clear that the price of housing is really high. It’s taken only five years for some of the most populous areas in Colorado to reach some crazy prices compared to many other places in the nation.
Housing in Colorado is relatively expensive, especially in the counties that surround the Boulder and Denver metro areas. The median sales price for a single-family home is almost twice the national price.
It’s crazy to think this massive spike has only occurred in just the past few years. For example, a single-family home in Denver metro counties sold for a median of $560,000 in March 2021. Inside the actual city of Denver, it is closer to $630,000.
If we take a look at the Colorado Association of Realtors, there’s a really fancy FastStats statistical tool. This statistical tool can give market data insights for any county in Colorado, including Denver.
If you take a look at the site, there’s also a bunch of housing reports that accompany it, that identify key metrics like house listings, sold listings, and many more.
How Denver Compares to Other Colorado Counties
Anyways, you can play around with the tool at some point and see that some other places, like the High Rockies counties, have the most expensive single-family homes.
Also, the nation‘s highest income per capita is in Pitkin County. This means that their homes are relatively expensive too. For example, a single-family home there sold for $3.1 million back in March 2021. Meanwhile, Summit and Eagle counties ended up selling homes averaging between $1.6 million and $1.2 million.
Bear in mind, that Pitkin Country and Summit and Eagle counties are generally wealthy resort communities, but consumer demand caused their prices to even skyrocket as well. In most mountain counties, the average home prices were below $1 million until 2021 happened.
This means that Denver metro counties are supposed to be affordable by comparison to the resort communities, but now they are starting to veer into the upper half of six figures, on average. So now, the actual city of Denver (for example), is the fifth most expensive place to live in Colorado with $630,000.
Meanwhile, in Boulder County, the home sold for $800,00 which is the fourth most expensive at a whopping $800,000.
The only workaround seems to be the suburbs. For example, Adams County homes are sold on an average of $455,350, while Arapahoe County sold for $522,500, Jefferson County at $600,00, and Broomfield at $620,000.
Homelessness and High Cost of Housing
Even then, more and more families are being squeezed out, and are forced to rent, or even find themselves falling closer and closer to homelessness. Some may say it’s because of increased crime, and others will say it’s because of the ongoing pandemic, causing some people to be out of employment for the very first time.
Either way, it’s clear that the housing situation in Denver is getting bad. Since the inventory of homes available for sale is low, it means that the cost of obtaining a house is quite high. In return, some people can no longer afford a home.
Related News: Denver Nonprofit Tackles Homelessness with $1000 Monthly Payments
While the times are stressful for many in Denver, Colorado, perhaps affordable housing is within reach. Perhaps there are some programs out there, whether it is one of the hotel shelter programs that are aimed to house homeless people, such as the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, or even the basic income programs like the Denver Basic Income Project. For now and into the future, the people of Denver deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
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