As spring revved up for the start of the home-selling season in metro Denver, something seemed missing: There were fewer houses for sale compared with the prior spring.
In April, the number of active listings for single-family homes fell 14.2% from April 2025. In May, it was off by 20.5%. And last month, active listings were down 21.1% or about 3,000 homes.
Meanwhile, home sales have been subdued, with year-to-date sales in the Denver area up just 0.2% from last year. June’s median price was flat, up 1.6% in a year to $650,000.
Less supply, apparently, has not resulted in increased demand, mused Cooper Thayer, a Denver County Realtor.
“Fewer homes for sale have helped support prices, but they have not created more demand or restored urgency,” Thayer said in an email.
Overall, though, there are still thousands of houses for sale in the Denver area — approximately 12,088 were actively marketed at the end of June, according to a report this week from the Colorado Association of Realtors. That’s nearly three times more than in the pandemic frenzy of June 2021 when sellers received multiple offers and homes, on average, sold in 10 days. It was a manic period in the local market that few professionals long for. Thayer calls the current market “constrained equilibrium.”
“It is certainly more orderly than 2021 or early 2022, which I think is healthier for consumers and real estate professionals. Buyers generally have time for inspections, negotiations and deliberation,” he said. “But I do not think most professionals would describe today’s market as ideal. A truly balanced market should still produce healthy transaction volume. Today, affordability is suppressing demand, while many homeowners with low mortgage rates are suppressing supply. The result is stability, but at a lower level of activity.”
Inventory has built back up since the frenzy, giving buyers and sellers a little more breathing room to consider offers. House hunters are getting used to higher interest rates. It now takes an average 39 days for a home to sell.
Going off market to relist later
But another factor impacting Denver follows a national trend. More sellers are taking their houses off the market and relisting them after 31 days. That happens if a home has sat for sale too long, is priced too high or its sellers are concerned about their finances or the economy.
According to an analysis by real estate firm Redfin, relisted homes made up 2.5% of the for-sale multiple-listing market in April, the highest share since 2020. Denver’s rate was 3.1%, ranking it the 10th highest in the nation.
“The rise in relistings is more a sign of a tough housing market than a weakening economy,” said Redfin’s Head of Economics Research Chen Zhao in an email. “Many sellers still have pandemic-era price expectations, while today’s buyers are constrained by high mortgage rates and affordability challenges. When a home doesn’t sell, some owners pull it off the market and relist later, but it’s less about financial distress and more about a mismatch between what sellers want and what buyers can afford.”
The share of relisted properties among all homes for sale has gone down a bit in the past few months. The U.S. rate was at 2.3% in June and Denver at 2.7%. That ranked the city fifth highest in the nation for the share of relisted homes in the market.
According to a Redfin analysis, 45% of Denver home sellers cut their listing price in April. That may not account for relistings but “it is an indicator that Denver remains a strong buyer’s market. And in a climate where buyers are more price-sensitive because monthly housing costs are much higher, that means pricing right is one of the most important factors of a successful sale,” Zhao said.
Area real estate professionals believe this is happening, even if they’re not promoting it themselves.
“It is a strategy that can bring homes that have been sitting on the market back to the forefront and get more attention,” said Kelly Moye, an agent at Compass in Boulder.
But does it work? “I can’t really say if it’s a good idea,” she said. “It does give some fresh eyes on a stale listing, but in the end, it’s not accurate for the buyers and doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s not something I do with my listings, but I know it happens.”
Patrick Muldoon, who works in real estate in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, said he feels the practice of taking a house off the market can be more destructive than reducing the price.
“My thoughts are get the price down before winter hits and get it sold or next year you are risking worse conditions,” he said. “Most of my sellers are listening and doing that.”
Housing market is different outside of Denver
The shrinking inventory is mostly in Denver-area counties, with Arapahoe down 26%, Boulder down 25.5% and Denver county down 30.1%. They’re also seeing flat prices, fewer homes selling and longer days on the market.
But in other parts of the state, inventory hasn’t changed as much. In El Paso County, inventory is off by 2.4% compared with June 2025. The county, which is home to Colorado Springs, saw home sales increase 2.4% in June from a year ago. Median prices are down 2% to $499,000.
The possible difference compared with Denver, said Colorado Springs Realtor Jay Gupta, is that local sellers learned to price their homes to attract buyers.
“I’ll tell you what’s keeping the market in check: a number of price reductions,” Gupta said. “I wrote in my report that 51% of the listings in El Paso County have had price reductions.”
One client brought him a lake front property in Monument priced at $1 million that hadn’t sold for months. The million-dollar market is tough and no one was buying million-dollar homes, he said. On Gupta’s advice, they took it off the market, cut $50,000 from the price and relisted it in late March. It had a contract within three weeks.
“People are basically learning the lesson from their mistakes. They say they tried to sell it and people are not coming,” he said. “When they reduced the price, they sold.”