Denver teachers can afford 1.1 percent of Denver homes

One group of people who gets a free pass from me to complain about the affordability of homes in Denver? Teachers.

For starters, only 85 homes listed in 2016 as of Sept. 30 would have been affordable on the average teacher’s salary, according to Redfin. That probably assumes that most of them don’t spend a bunch of their own salary tending to the needs of their classroom. 

That means only 1.1 percent of homes in Denver are affordable to teachers. That’s almost the smallest share of affordable homes among the 32 metros that Redfin studied. Only San Francisco had a smaller share of affordable homes for teachers — 0.6 percent.

And what’s considered affordably priced home sounds unrealistic in Denver’s market: $180,000. The median priced home, just for reference, is $347,000, according to Redfin.

The real estate firm says that stagnant wages and an increasingly expensive and competitive housing market have hurt teachers in Denver.