Denver’s real estate market is showing signs of a precipitous shift from a buyer’s market to a “normal” market, according to a newly released report by Jack O’Connor, Managing Broker of Prestige Real Estate Group and a widely read industry analyst.

The shift is evident, O’Connor reported May 5, in the continued drop of market-wide inventory to just over 27,000 homes, down from peak levels of 2006; as well as in the market’s supply of homes, now indicated at just over seven months of supply. Traditionally, a buyer’s market is defined by a supply greater than eight months. A seller’s market, one with high demand where sellers have flexibility in pricing their homes, is defined by a supply of less than six months.

“What we’re seeing is a return to a normal market in Denver,” said Leeann Iacino, President of Prestige Real Estate Group, in releasing the report. “This is further evidence of the countercyclical performance of Colorado’s market, which went into a post-911 slowdown faster than other national markets, and now appears to be recovering faster, as well.”
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WHERE: Blueprint, new-build loft style condo at Colfax and Madison. Pre-sale by Coldwell Banker Devonshire in Cherry Creek, 200 Fillmore Street, Ste. 300.

PRICE: From $260s, penthouses from $400s
PHONE: 303-704-0911 or 303-987-4978

When Coldwell Banker Devonshire agent Ali Van Westenberg launched pre-sales last summer on Blueprint, 39 new lofts designed for Colfax and Madison two blocks from the old Bluebird Theater, she’d taken 16 contracts within weeks. A few months later, as newspapers were filling with bad news about the national real estate market, construction financing went into limbo…but 15 contracts held tight, and now Blueprint is under construction and selling again.

The developer, meanwhile, has new financing in place and has launched construction at the site, within a short walk of some venerable eateries like Good Friends, Bastien’s Steak House and Star Cafe…and a longer stroll to the new Tattered Cover.
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By Mark Samuelson

So, where in the metro area did Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony plop down a reported $12 million last year for a 16,000-square-foot Tuscan-style pad on a sprawling, gated estate? Was it Cherry Hills Village? Franktown? North Boulder County?

Actually, Littleton. Polo Reserve is off Platte Canyon Road, designed around a polo field for a Parade of Homes in the early ’90s.

The Parade was in The Farm at Polo Reserve: giant customs clustered around the field created for the Denver Polo Classic (300 yards long and equaling nine football fields…as backyard open space goes, very open indeed.)
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