Case-Shiller: Denver home prices up for 3rd straight month (short sales, foreclosures)

[2bindenver]

Case-Shiller: Denver home prices up for 3rd straight month - For the third month in a row, Denver-area home prices showed a year-over-year increase in January, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index. Out of 20 U.S. cities in the closely watched report from Standard & Poor’s, released Tuesday, Denver was one of nine that showed a year-over-year increase in prices. Denver-area home prices were 2.6% higher in January 2010 than in January 2009. That followed a 1.2% year-over-year increase in December and a 0.5% gain in November.
Case-Shiller: Denver home prices up for 3rd straight month - Denver Business Journal:

[outside1]

DQNews - Denver Area Home Prices and Sales

[EscapeCalifornia]

Buy now or be priced out forever!

[2bindenver]

I don't think that statement is true. Or even could be true. It's never been true in the past.

[Nav]

If you look at the link outside1 posted, you will see that only certain zip codes showed increases. Many, if not the majority showed negative trends both in pricing and sales. Also look at the median prices. you can see the impact of short sales and foreclosures since those types make up a portion of the numbers.

Is it beginning to stabilize, I'd say yes. Is it an appreciating market, that is questionable.

Nav

[2bindenver]

I do not understand how a median price would show whether an area is appreciating or not.

[outside1]

Not only should you look at trends by zip, preferably with greater granularity than that but you need to apply some intelligence to the numbers as well.

For instance, in areas where new construction is prominent builders have reduced prices and in some cases stopped building the higher priced houses, generally people are trying to stay below the jumbo limit for loans. So you will see areas where the average price was in the 5-600's two years ago trending lower but not because the existing houses are depreciating, rather the newer houses are cheaper and often smaller.

[Willy702]

Originally Posted by 2bindenver

I do not understand how a median price would show whether an area is appreciating or not.

This is an excellent point. In many of the hardest hit markets all that is selling is the bottom of the market, but in high volumes. If you get a lot of volume on the low end and no volume on the high end you would see a steeply declining median price.