Market Intelligence

Half of Metro Denver’s Listings Have Cut Their Price

National forecasters revised their 2026 outlook over the past few weeks. Mortgage rates are now expected to hold in the mid-6s instead of the low 6s, and projected existing-home sales were trimmed from 4.5 million to 4.2 million. The one number they left alone was the price forecast. They still expect home prices to rise nationally this year, on the reasoning that there aren’t enough homes for sale to push prices down.

That reasoning doesn’t fit Metro Denver.

May recap: The median rose 2.5% over the year, but don’t be fooled

Last month we flagged a market splitting in two, with detached homes moving and attached homes stalling. In May that split widened far enough to bend the one number everyone reads. A median doesn’t measure how much any single home gained. It measures the price of whatever sold in the middle of the stack, so when the cheaper end of the market stops transacting, the middle floats up on its own, and not one home has to appreciate for it to happen.

Home-purchase loans just hit a 12-year low. Denver kept selling.

ATTOM’s first-quarter mortgage report landed this week, and the headline number is a real one. Lenders originated 581,261 home-purchase loans nationwide, the fewest in any quarter since 2014. New home sales told the same story, down 11% from a year ago in April. On paper, it reads like the buyers left.

Why mortgage rates just snapped higher — and what it means here

The 10-year Treasury yield touched 4.7% this week, its highest in 16 months, before settling back near 4.60%. That number may sound like financial-pages noise, but it’s what your mortgage rate is built on. Bloomberg’s read of it is worth sitting with: the forty-year slide in long-term yields that quietly subsidized housing for a generation looks like it’s over.

Inventory just jumped 17%. Who actually benefits?

We ended last month with 11,539 homes for sale across Metro Denver, up 17% from the month before. DMAR is leading with that figure, and the trade coverage is already calling it an inventory surge. Fair enough. But the metro area isn’t one market, and one number can’t tell you what’s happening on your street.

One Market, Two Directions: April in Review

Read only the top-line numbers from April and you’d think Denver Metro has settled into a steady rhythm. Median close price came in at $605,000, within a few thousand dollars of April 2025 and April 2024. Closings rose 2.35% from March. Median days in MLS tightened to 14. On the surface, a market in balance. We see it differently.

What does the Middle East have to do with your mortgage?

For decades, the conventional wisdom has been that global instability is good for U.S. mortgage rates. When the world feels unsafe, money flows into U.S. Treasury bonds, which pushes their yields down, which pulls mortgage rates down with them. That was roughly the pattern after 9/11. It was the pattern through the 2008 financial crisis. It’s the pattern a lot of buyers are still expecting. This cycle is running differently. And the reason starts at the gas pump.