The Denver housing market went from simmering in December to sizzling hot in January, fueled by a stunning increase in listings.

According to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors (DMAR) monthly report, new listings jumped a whopping 89.27% in January over December. Demand for these homes was so great that homebuyers “were scooping them up faster than they were coming on the market,” writes Jill Schafer, chair of the DMAR Market Trends Committee in the report. Thus, the numbers reported by DMAR’s new report, of 4,941 active listings, don’t reflect the full picture. (While the active listings statistic shows a decrease of 1.91% from December, this is misleading due to the inordinate rate at which new listings were snapped up.)

“Continued low interest rates, 18 days above the average January temperatures and no postseason Denver Broncos games were some of the reasons we saw the market heat up early,” notes Schafer, who added that “…our continued pent-up demand and more free non-football time on our January weekends started us off strong.”

The market was so strong, in fact, that real estate agents were recounting anecdotes of bidding wars reminiscent of those seen at height of the market. For example, Steve Danyliw, a member of the DMAR Market Trends Committee, told the Denver Post that a client recently made an offer $10,000 above the $380,000 listing price of a townhome, “only to find out later,” notes the Post, “the offer was one of nine, and it came up short.”

“If you are in the right price range, this (bidding war) is happening again,” Danyliw said.

Other notes from the report:

• Average closing prices for residential properties dropped slightly in January from December, to $476,003. This is still, however, 3.98% higher than last January.
• The record high for active listings in Denver in January was 24,550 in 2008; the low was 3,869 in 2018.
• In December of 2019, 44.6% of closed transactions reflected a reduced asking price, compared to 45.5% in December of 2018. “Properties with price reductions spent an average of 70 days on market compared to 15 days for those with no price reductions,” notes DMAR.
• DMAR expects the market to wrap up earlier this year, due to the upcoming presidential election. “Consider putting your listings on the market now to take advantage of the low inventory,” it suggests.