Metro Denver home prices moved higher for the second month in a row in May, raising hopes that the region’s long- suffering housing market could be stabilizing.
Metro home prices rose 1 percent in May from April, adding to a 0.8 percent gain in April from March, according to the closely watched S&P/Case- Shiller Home Price index.
“It answers that question of ‘Where is the bottom?’ ” said Mike Cox, a real-estate consultant with Re/Max Professionals Inc. in Highlands Ranch.
But others argue that prices need to hold up during the slow fall and winter selling season before a bottom can be called.
For the past two summers, home prices have risen in Denver month-over-month between April and August, only to start declining again in September, according to the index.
Mike Burns, broker-owner of Re/Max Professionals Inc. in Littleton, said the numbers more likely indicate a slight surge in buyer confidence rather than a trend.
“It probably has to do with the fact that we went a few months without being hammered in the national news about foreclosures,” he said. “People started thinking about gas prices a little more and less about foreclosures.”
Although the number of showings for his office is at its highest level in two years, buyers in general remain hesitant.
The bad news about financial institutions has buyers concerned about mortgages and sellers worried about buyers qualifying for loans.
“I think it’s possible the numbers will go down before they start going up again,” Burns said.
One thing the index confirms is that Denver home prices this year are holding up better than most other areas tracked in the 20-city index, which declined 15.8 percent in May from the same month in 2007.
Losses in Las Vegas and Miami, considered epicenters of the housing bubble, were especially severe. Home values in both cities have fallen more than 28 percent in the past year.
Denver’s 4.8 percent annual decline was the third-smallest year-over-year loss in home values of the 20 cities tracked. Only Charlotte, N.C., and Dallas had more modest declines in the past year.
“Traditionally, Denver has been a market that stays away from the extremes of ups and downs and consequently recovers quicker,” Cox said.
Since 2000, home prices in metro Denver are up 29.7 percent, an increase not much better than the rate of inflation.
Even with recent declines, home values remain 90 percent higher in Los Angeles and Miami this decade and more than 75 percent higher in Portland, Ore.; San Diego; Tampa, Fla.; and Seattle, according to the index.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
