For most of the country, November was a bad month for new house construction.
“Housing starts dropped in November, and the drop was due to more than October’s big increase. For context, housing starts in November were the second lowest since October of last year,” said Ralph McLaughlin, Trulia's chief economist.
Of course, that's not true in Denver. Sure, November wasn't as good as October for new house construction in the city, but it wasn't far behind:
So Denver is on track to finish 2016 with more new housing started than in 2015.
If you happen to be selling a home that's been around for a while, don't fret over all the new houses. The Case-Shiller index reports that Denver home prices have risen 8.3 percent compared to last October. (Case-Shiller only measures the repeated sales of individual homes, thus does not include new homes.)
That puts Denver among the top three markets for the year so far, along with Portland and Seattle.
And those homes sold faster than ever during November, according to Redfin. Their analysis of the November housing market found that the typical home sold in just 19 days — 16 days faster than the same time last year. Plus, 69 percent of homes sold within two weeks.
Heck, even Denver home values are up, according to Zillow.
Their home value index finds that Denver metro home values are currently at their peak. Which means that Zillow's data suggests that home values were never as high as they are now, even during the housing boom around 2006.
The median home value now stands at $352,800, Zillow says, an increase of 9.7 percent over the past year.
If the prospect of all that equity has you in a tizzy, keep in mind that Denver wasn't even in the top three markets that Zillow studied.
Yes, Portland, Seattle and Dallas reported the highest year-over-year home value appreciation among the 35 largest U.S. metros that Zillow studied. Harumph.
