Testing a Zip Code's “Buyer's Market” Label

Earlier this week one of those big real estate portals sent me an automated email saying 80014, a zip code in Aurora, is a buyer's market. According to the email, there are more homes for sale than people shopping for them, the median listing price is down 9.8% from a year ago, and homes are taking about 72 days to sell.

Many of you get the same kind of email for your own zip code, so I tested this one against MLS data and then ran the same test on each of the seven Metro Denver counties.

How to measure it

The standard measure is months of supply: the number of homes for sale divided by the number that sell in a typical month. It measures how long the current inventory would last if no new listings came on the market. Six months or more is the usual threshold for a buyer's market. Well below that, sellers tend to hold the advantage.

80014

By that standard, the portal has 80014 right. There are 265 homes for sale in the zip code, and 121 sold between June and August, which works out to 6.6 months of supply.

That figure comes almost entirely from condos and townhomes, which make up 84% of the zip code's listings. Attached supply in 80014 runs between six and eight months, depending on whether you use this summer's sales pace or the past year's. Single-family homes are at about three months. That's based on a small number of sales, but it's far from buyer's-market territory.

The portal's own figures show the median sale price in 80014 down about 11% over the past year, while price per square foot fell about 4%. When the median falls much faster than price per square foot, smaller homes usually make up a larger share of what's selling. Part of that decline likely comes from a shift toward smaller homes.

Metro Denver months of supply by county

No county in the seven-county area comes close to 80014. For all homes combined, none reaches six months of supply, and the seven-county figure is 3.6 months.

County	All homes	Detached	Attached
Adams	3.5	3.3	4.4–4.8
Arapahoe	3.4	2.7	5.3–5.7
Boulder	3.7	3.1	5.4–6.1
Broomfield*	2.8	2.3	4.9–5.3
Denver	4.6	3.3	7.5–7.7
Douglas	3.1	2.9	4.7–5.0
Jefferson	3.2	2.8	5.0–5.4
Seven-county	3.6	3.0	5.7–6.1

All-home and detached figures use June–August closed sales. Attached figures show a range because summer is the busiest season for closings: the lower number uses summer sales, and the higher number uses sales over the past 12 months. *Broomfield's counts are small, so treat its figures as a rough read.

Single-family homes are in short supply in every county, between 2.3 and 3.3 months, with a seven-county figure of 3.0. By most definitions, detached homes in Metro Denver range from a balanced market to one that still favors sellers.

Condos and townhomes are closer to buyer's-market conditions. Denver County is the only county where attached supply clearly passes six months, at 7.5 to 7.7. Across all seven counties, attached supply sits right at the threshold at 5.7 to 6.1 months, and Boulder County is in a similar range. Arapahoe and Jefferson are in the mid-fives, and Adams and Douglas are lower.

So is Metro Denver a buyer's market? For single-family homes, it isn't. For condos and townhomes, it's close overall and past six months in Denver County and in zip codes like 80014, where attached homes make up most of what's for sale.

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If you'd like to see how your zip code and property type compare, reply to this email and I'll run the numbers for you.

Sources: REcolorado MLS: active listings as of September 2026; closed sales June–August 2026 and September 2025–August 2026; months of supply calculated by The Principal Team. Real estate portal market data for 80014.