Last week I predicted a slowdown in the real estate market because of the abrupt and severe increase in mortgage rates, and I stand by that prediction, but it will not be apparent, I believe, until we see the market statistics for May 2022.
April statistics won’t be available until mid-May, but below is a table showing March statistics over the past 6 years. As you can see, especially in the last two columns, the seller’s market was only accelerating. Despite a surge in new listings and a high number of pending and closing listings resulting in a record low number of active listing, the median days in the MLS was at its lowest — 4 days — and the ratio of closed price to listing price was at its highest.
Although the numbers for April aren’t yet available, I checked the pending and closing listings from April 1 through April 24th on REcolorado, the Denver MLS, and found that DOM was still only four, and the ratio of sold price to listing price had swollen to 105.5%.
Keep in mind, however, that those listings which are pending now or have closed in April probably had interest rates that were locked in back in March before the abrupt increase in mortgage interest rates which I still believe will soften the market in May and beyond.
Here are a couple other statistics as of April 24th that suggest an increased seller’s market: There are only 4,995 active listings in the entire MLS, but there are 10,649 pending listings. Compare that to the above chart.
Golden Real Estate's Blog 