Council president touts rental license plan but industry voices concerns
Guerilla Capturing photo)
Citing a need to broadly overhaul regulation of the city’s estimated 50,000-plus rental housing market, Denver City Council President Stacie Gilmore on Wednesday presented her proposal to institute a license requirement for rental properties to her colleagues.
The Denver Metro Association of Realtors and the Colorado Apartment Association were among those voicing opposition.
Gilmore’s proposal, titled Healthy Residential Rentals for All, would be by far the largest single licensing program in the city, and the largest expansion of required licensing in Denver’s history.
It would obligate landlords to get a license from the city for each of their rental properties every four years, a process that would require an inspection of the property.
A just-issued study reports that home price growth nationwide reached a fifteen-year peak in February; of twenty major cities surveyed, Denver has seen costs rise the most over that span. But while metro area prices are predicted to keep going up over the course of 2021, the rate of increase is expected to slow down considerably from the record-setting pace currently scorching the housing market in the Mile High City.
Note that in the April market trends report from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors, released this week, the average price of a detached home in the Denver area sits at $674,990, an increase of more than $40,000 over last month and in excess of $100,000 above the same period a year ago.
The association describes the current scenario as an unwavering seller s market, and it s got the figures to back that up. In the past, many buyers have waited out the winter before getting more serious in the spring about making purchases. This year, however, the typically slow cold-weather months were red-hot, suggesting that the next few months will be even crazier than usual.
Low inventory is certainly an important driver behind what s happening. Active listings for detached homes in Denver at the end of March stood at 1,122, a bump of just two from the 1,120 in February, but more than 70 percent lower than the 3,829 available homes counted a year earlier.
THE SELLER’S MARKET
The holiday season usually sees a decline in the number of homes listed for sale, but this November hit another record low
just 3,415 single family home listings as buyers continue to purchase homes at high rates, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. A record high was also set in November for the average closing price for single-family detached and attached properties
$549,756. The previous record was $486,012 in 2019, according to the analysis. (Patch). As Ella Taylor of The Wall Street West Group, Keller Williams Realty, DTC, has been pointing out for months, it’s a seller’s market because buyers are gobbling up everything.
Major Challenges In Denver Metro Area For New Home Seekers As Median Home Price Increases By 21% In Past Year
CBS Denver 3/5/2021 Syndicated Local – CBS Denver
DENVER (CBS4) – The housing market in the Denver metro area has seen a dramatic increase in home prices of more than 20 percent over the past year, making it even more competitive for families to buy their first home. Those who were able to purchase a house say they had to open their search beyond their initial expectations as realtors say the inventory will only improve slightly for the rest of 2021, keeping it a seller’s market.