Denver Home Prices Lag

Rocky Mountain News reports:

Four years ago, the Denver-area housing market was one of the most expensive in the United States.

Only the metropolitan areas of San Francisco, San Diego and Orange County, Calif., Seattle, Honolulu, Boston and New York City could boast higher prices.

A year ago, Denver was No. 29.

But a third-quarter report released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors shows that with a median, or middle, price of $253,500, Denver has dropped to the 35th most expensive out of 147 metropolitan areas.

The reason: Home prices in Denver have been appreciating about a fifth as fast as the nation and about one-eighth as fast as the top 20 percent of the market, according to the Realtors' data.

During the third quarter, the median appreciation nationwide was 14.7 percent, according to the trade group. Exact comparable data for Denver wasn't available because the organization doesn't have the median price of homes in the Denver area from the third quarter of 2004.

Times change.