Let’s evaluate our worth as citizens of Denver by seeing how much money we generated in the real estate market! Doesn’t that sound fun?
First, Denver's housing stock was valued at $377.5 billion in a new analysis from Zillow. Relatively speaking, that's about 1.3 percent of the value of entire housing stock of the United States, which is remarkable to me.
In terms of other metropolitan areas, that $377.5 billion is only the 16th highest value for housing stock. Familiar metros like Los Angeles, New York City and Boston outranked our city, but Riverside, California, also had higher valued homes than Denver.
And though many Denverites suspect the rents are too damn high, at least 16 other cities outranked Denver in terms of total rent paid. San Francisco, Chicago and Washington D.C. each generated nearly 2.5 as much rent during 2016.
By estimating the number of rental households and using their rental indexes, Zillow estimated that renters in Denver paid a paltry $5.8 billion over the year. Of course, that paltry $5.8 billion is likewise about 1.2 percent of the entire rent paid across of the United States, according to the firm's report.
Anyway, here's to 2017 -- may Denver's relative placement among metros rise or fall according to your preference.
