As published in DMAR Market Trends, January 2023

Two Colorado cities ranked on U.S. News & World Report’s top 50 cities for dog owners. Denver ranked 11^th and Colorado Springs ranked 23^rd.

According to Zillow, backyards will be the number one requirement for new homebuyers in 2023, followed by kitchen islands, mirrored walls, less open floor plans and more privacy.

Showings slowed down in December as the holiday season was in full gear, and people began spending more time with friends and family. Denver’s LoDo area, however, saw an increase in showings during this time.

Buyers and sellers are still in the market but moving more slowly than at this time last year. Buyers are not in a hurry to make an offer and sellers are not in a rush to put their homes up for sale.

Renters, who previously planned to buy, are postponing that decision as interest rates have risen and inventory has dropped, all while rent prices decrease.

Rent prices saw the highest one-month decline in seven years in November. The first sign of a slowdown in rents was in October when rents dropped 0.1%, which stopped the above-average monthly rent increase trend that began in November 2020.

According to an article in Realtor.com®, seven of the top 10 states seeing the biggest increase in home price reductions are in a continuous chunk of the western United States: Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and California.

MORTGAGE NEWS

We ended the year with mortgage rates jumping from 6.13% to 6.55% due to light holiday trading, an opening China, a hawkish Japan, confident Americans and a strong workforce.

When the Federal Reserve meets again at the end of January, everyone is expecting another 0.25% raise in the Fed rate.

Per CoreLogic, Denver saw a 44.6% increase in appreciation from January 2020 through its peak in May 2022. Since then, it has given back 4.95%. Those are still strong price gains!