Denver soars to No. 1 in home value increase

A article by the Rocky Mountain News talked about Denver toping the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index. The Denver home appreciation rate in August was a sad .3% increase but beat all all other cities including Miami with a -2% appreciation rate, Los Angeles with a -1.1% appreciation rate and Dallas with a 0% appreciation rate.

….”It looks like Denver may be one of the first markets in the turnaround mode. Maybe,” said Maureen Maitland, an analyst and vice president at Standard & Poor’s…..

“However,” she added, “Denver has had five positive months of price movement in a row.”….

Maitland noted that Denver -real estate stumbled earlier than most cities in the country and in recent years didn’t go through the double-digit price appreciation experienced by other formerly hot markets on the coasts and places such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Nevertheless, the new-home market in the Denver area is still suffering through its worst period in more than a decade, according to a report by the Genesis Group.

Genesis said that there were 5,842 sales of new homes in the first half of the year, a 33 percent drop from the 8,758 sold in the first half of 2006. And 2006 was the worst year for new home sales in a decade.

She said she is concerned, in fact, that values have risen too fast in some areas and aren’t sustainable.

“We’ve seen appreciation in Highland at 13.5 percent and Cherry Creek North at 22 percent,” Vallejo said. “What we want is appreciation at 7 percent to 10 percent.”….

“There will be another year for buyers to buy,” Sandberg said. “But a lot of people are going to wait until all of the doom and gloom is over, and they are going to end up paying more.

“You need to buy when the market is down to get the best deal.”