The Voice of Colorado Real Estate: The Colorado Association of Realtors

Knowing the statistics in your market will help you and your Realtor make qualified and informed decisions
on what may be the biggest investment of your life.

One of the goals of the Colorado Association of Realtors^® (CAR) is to be the voice of Colorado real estate. In this capacity, CAR is an invaluable, direct source of information. For example, CAR provides the most accurate real estate market statistics based on 100% of all Multiple Listing Services (MLS) participating across the state. The data taken from the MLS is then scrubbed to eliminate duplicates where the same property might be included in more than one MLS system. The collection of data is enormous and comprehensive, and only a few listings that are for sale by owners and some new construction are not included in the database.

Each month the data is tabulated and available on the Colorado Association of Realtors website at coloradorealtors.com. The data is available to the public and searchable by county. In order to get detailed statistics about individual communities or about specific neighborhoods, your Realtor^® will be able to help you.

Each county’s graph includes eight key components of the real estate market: New Listings, Sold Listings, Median and Average Sales Price, % of List Price Received, Days on Market, Total Inventory and Month’s Supply of Inventory.

Following the monthly graphs will give you a good indicator of the overall market by watching the quantity of listings and sold properties. You can also watch the trend line to see if average and median prices are rising or falling.

One of the primary questions on people’s minds is whether or not we are in a buyer’s or seller’s market. There are a few key data points to follow to give you an idea of this trend.

The first data point is Days on Market. Clearly, the hotter the market, the shorter the average time on the market. 90 days on the market is a baseline in the industry. If days on the market is 90 days or less, the market is leaning toward a seller’s market. 90 days usually indicates a balanced market and over 90 days tends to mean it is leaning toward a buyer’s market.

Next is Number of Months of Inventory. Generally, a balanced market has four to seven month’s supply of homes. Less than four leans toward a seller’s market and greater than seven leans toward a buyer’s market.

Sales Price to List Price is another helpful indicator of the trend. If properties are selling for 97% of list price and even over 100%, that is an indicator of a seller’s market. The 95% to 97% range is an indication of a balanced market. Less than 95% is leaning towards a buyer’s market.

Knowing the statistics in your market will help you and your Realtor make qualified and informed decisions on what may be the biggest investment of your life.

A huge thank you to the Colorado Association of Realtors for providing the budget from member’s dues to provide this service to the public and its Realtor members.

To view Boulder County’s monthly statistics: visit
car-co.stats.showingtime.com/docs/lmu/x/BoulderCounty?src=page.

By Duane Duggan. Duane is an award-winning Realtor and author of the book, “Realtor for Life”. He has been a Realtor for RE/MAX of Boulder since 1982 and has facilitated over 2,500 transactions over his career. Living the life of a Realtor and being immersed in real estate led to the inception of his book, Realtor for Life. For questions, e-mail Duane at DuaneDuggan@boulderco.com, call 303.441.5611 or visit boulderco.com.