June 19, 2012 (Shirley Allen)

Monthly sales of new and resale homes in the Denver area improved year-over-year for the third time in the last four months while suffering a small monthly decline in April according to the latest data released from DataQuick.

A total of 3,702 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the Denver-Aurora metro area in April. Sales were 1.0 percent lower than the 3,738 homes sold in March but were still 9.1 percent higher than the 3,393 homes sold in April of 2011.

Home sales in the region typically increase only 0.4 percent between March and April and were 23.3 percent lower than the average number of homes typically sold during the month.

Cash buyers accounted for 25.5 percent of the purchases in April, which was down from 28.0 percent in March and down from 25.6 percent a year earlier. The record for cash purchases was in February 2011, when 32.1 percent of the sales were for cash.

The median price that cash buyers paid for their homes in April was $162,100, up from $150,844 March and up from $138,000 from a year ago.

Absentee buyers, usually investors and vacation home buyers, accounted for 23.7 percent of all the homes sold in April, down from 25.5 percent in March. The median price they paid for their purchases was $160,350, up 6.6 percent from March and 18.8 percent from a year earlier. The record amount of purchases made by absentee buyers was 28.4 percent in February of 2011.

The overall median price paid for new and resale homes and condos in April was $219,000, up 3.7 percent from March and up 6.8 percent from April of last year. It was the third time in the last four months that home prices improved year-over-year.

April’s median price is 11.5 percent below the peak median price of $247,569 in June 2006.

Tags: existing home sales, Denver, resale homes, condos, cash buyers, investors, median price

Source:
DataQuick