Real Estate Market Update- Summer 2025

It's been a good summer over here with lots of real estate, time with family and friends, and some pickleball thrown in too.

We got in our summer trips just before school started and had a fun time traveling with friends to Minnesota and to see my family in Oklahoma City. If you ever get a chance to visit Paul Bunyon Land in Minnesota, you should take that chance. It's a little Minnesota gem, Scarlett had so much fun, and the 25 ft tall, animatronic Paul Bunyon even moves and talks directly to the kids. Here is a little family pic of us in Minnesota last month. When we got back Scarlett started pre-school and we can't believe how fast time has flown. She just had her 4th birthday. It's true what they say- the time goes by so quickly!

Ok- on to the question on top of everyone's mind- what is happening with the housing market? We read the headlines and the national news makes things seem pretty dire. But what are our local stats like? Ken and I dug into the numbers.

We wanted to take a look at the overall state of the market and so we pulled data for all property types in all of Boulder County. We looked at the data for the Denver metro and suburbs as well. All communities along the Front Range trend similarly and so what we see in Boulder County will be in accordance with what happens in all communities in our area, from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. For ease, we are just showing the graphs from Boulder County.

Let's dig in!

Not Much Movement in Home Values

Median Closed Price- Boulder County- Single Family Homes

Median Closed Price- Boulder County- Attached Homes

Click on the graphs to enlarge them.

Median sold price for both single family homes and attached dwellings is down slightly year-over-year, but still holding largely stable since the highs of 2022. This is somewhat surprising as you'll see that a number of other market measures have changed over that same period of time, however, they've failed to have much impact on home prices.

Inventory Levels Are Rising for the Third Year Straight

Active Listings-Boulder County- Single Family Homes

Active Listings-Boulder County- Attached Dwellings

Both attached dwelling and single-family home active listing levels have been steadily increasing since the beginning of 2022. Buyers have more homes to choose from, giving them an upper hand in negotiations in some transactions, although well-priced homes in good condition are still getting multiple offers.

What does this tell us? Buyers have many more homes to choose from. Showing activity, where it was once concentrated on the few listings that were available is now spread out over a much great number of homes for sale. Sellers are experiencing lower levels of showing activity. We are seeing buyers successfully negotiate purchase prices down, concessions for interest rate buy downs, and inspection items in many transactions.

Surprise! Buyer Demand is Increasing

Pending Listings- Boulder County- Single Family Homes

Pending Listings- Boulder County- Attached Homes

The data here runs contrary to much of what we have been reading about the real estate market as a whole. It is common to hear that buyer demand is depressed due to high interest rates, job or economic uncertainty, and a variety of other explanations. However, there are more people buying homes this year than in the past two, indicating that buyer demand isn't responsible for what feels like a sluggish market.

Months Supply Shows Signs That We're Moving Toward, or Have Moved Into a Buyer's Market

Months Supply of Homes- Boulder County- Single Family Homes

Months Supply of Homes- Boulder County-Attached Dwellings

The single-family home market remains in a balanced state, with a 4.3-month supply, indicating that buyers and sellers typically have roughly equal negotiating leverage. The attached dwelling market has shifted further in favor of buyers. This is likely due to a combination of rapidly increasing HOA dues for condo complexes, the greater availability of single-family homes, and the continued impact of work-from-home jobs. If inventory levels continue to rise in the single family home market, we will likely move into more buyer-favored territory.

Homes Are Taking Longer to Sell, Especially Condos and Townhomes

Median Days in MLS- Boulder County- Single Family Homes

Median Days in MLS- Boulder County- Attached Dwellings

Both single-family homes and attached dwellings have been taking increasingly longer to sell each year since 2022. The increase is more pronounced for attached dwellings at 31 days vs single-family homes at 18 days.

So what can we take from all of these stats? To us, these stats show that in the face of some difficult economic data and news (higher interest rates, uncertainty at the FED, tariffs, and job market uncertainty), our market remains resilient. Buyer demand for Boulder County has stayed consistent and home values are holding stable.

The real change has been that more people have decided to sell their homes this year than in the past.

Why the uptick in active listings? It may be that owning real estate in a price-stable environment is less attractive than holding onto it while prices are increasing, causing more owners to list their homes for sale than is typically seen in a year. Perhaps we are also seeing the impact of a few years of decreased first-time home buyer activity due to higher interest rates. It isn't completely clear at the moment.  

What impact will our higher levels of inventory have on the rest of this year and the next? It could be that we continue to see home prices depress a bit. But as the past two years have shown, high inventory levels aren't enough to push prices down anywhere near as much as some would-be home buyers might hope.

We talk frequently about the fact that the news articles are there for clicks, not to provide accurate, nuanced data and analysis. So while much of the news coverage of the real estate market lands in the negative right now, and there are certainly some pieces of the economy that are providing drag to our market, we are lucky to live in an area that has proven to be quite resilient. We have a wide variety of businesses and institutions that help to stabilize our market as well as the natural beauty and amenities that continue draw and keep people in our area.

How does this relate to your world? We'd love to hear from you.