Denver’s Median Home Price is Now Five Times More Than Income

Median home prices in Denver are now five times higher than median income, well above the national average, the Denver Post reports.

To put that in perspective, a median-priced home in metro Denver back in 1960 and 1970 went for a little more than two-times the typical household income, during an era when many more households survived on a single income, according to an analysis from Clever Real Estate.

Even as late as 1990, the ratio was at 2.59, below the 2.6 ration that Eylul Tekin, a researcher with Clever Real Estate, recommends buyers don’t cross if they can avoid it. The U.S. ratio is at 3.6.

There’s a long lies of why builders can’t supply homes at two or even three times median household incomes in metro Denver anymore. Lots to build on have become more expensive. Skilled labor is in short supply, driving up prices. Regulations and fees imposed by local governments have become more burdensome.

To get the price-to-income ratio back to a more manageable level, he argues builders need to create homes similar in size to what they did in the first half of the last century, on smaller lots located on lower-cost land.

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