PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! Get off the fence. Quit waiting. I’ve been telling you that the Denver area real estate market is not the doom and gloom market the press is bellowing about. The “cranes” are everywhere and we are not talking birds.  Enterprise and commerce create jobs. Big box developments featuring top name tenants are quickly replacing old style shopping centers or once vacant acreage.

Denver Colorado ranks as the 6th BEST residential real estate market (single family homes) according to the Standard and Poor’s Cas-Shiller Home Price idices released data for February 2008. Rankings for the 20-city composite recorded an annual decline of 12.7% while Denver recorded an annual decline of only 5.5%.

Las Vegas, again the weakest market posting a 22.8% decline followed by Miami with a 21.7% decline. San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles were the worst performers in the west!

Charlotte with a 1.5% increase in home prices was followed by Portland Oregon and Seattle, leading the composite as best markets.

More good news. Multiple offers, which we have not seen for a few years are not uncommon today, with Buyer’s bidding up the prices by as much as 10%. The average number of days on the markets is slowly creeping down in just about every area. The curiosity factor is picking up as the number of “showings” has dramatically picked up the past month. Simply put, I think the Denver area real estate market continues to move toward a stronger recovery than most give it credit for.

So what’s the bad news? Sure, the junk houses that need “everything” are sitting and will sit until  lenders come back to offering secondary financing for real buyers, investors and renovators with honest intentions. The banks don’t give a darn about how their derilict foreclosed homes affect their neighbors and the that will continue until legislation requires the banks to be better citizens and care for their properties.

Stay tuned as Denver’s housing market improves through the spring and summer months!