When Mile Hi Modern agent Brandy Pfalmer’s clients put in an offer on a $1.025 million home in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood last week, her clients added an extra $75,000 to sweeten the deal. But that wasn’t enough.

Ultimately, Pfalmer’s buyers lost out to another party offering a cash transaction — one of many multiple-offer situations that brokers are reporting now, as the Denver Metro Association of Realtors issues its monthly Market Trends report covering February sales activity.

DMAR’s Market Trends report confirmed that sudden jump in activity. Listings arriving on the market for sale, it said, were up 12% last month, but pending sales jumped by 29%, suggesting a significant market shift in favor of sellers.

TIME ON MARKET DROPS

The time required for a typical home to find a buyer in the Denver area market fell to 33 days, down almost 38% from January.

“Since the new year we’ve been extremely busy; it’s almost like back to 2022,” Pfalmer, with Mile Hi’s Graham Group, told The Denver Gazette. 

“I had clients who had lost out on three homes based on bidding wars,” said Lakewood-Arvada broker Ali Van Westenberg with Keller Williams Real Estate.

Van Westenberg told The Denver Gazette that one of those listings in Lakewood took six offers, and one in Arvada priced at $575,000 took seven.

Both local and national sources are reporting now that a dip of 30-year mortgage rates below the six-percent threshold is nudging homebuyers back into making offers.

A Wall Street Journal story last week noted that the slight drop marked the first time rates had posted below 6% since 2022. The story went on to speculate that the new level could mark a psychological threshold for buyers heading into spring.

The key 30-year-rate is influenced by many factors, including the federal funds rate, which dropped twice late last year. There were indications that the breakout of attacks in the Middle East was jostling rates. However, various reports still have those below 6%, ranging from the mid-5s to the low 6s.

Van Westenberg said she’s not sure that rates have been all that important in prompting the sudden activity in the Denver market.

“It’s definitely busier than last year,” she said. “Before the lower rates, we were seeing people in anticipation.”

Van Westenberg notes that she views the livelier sales as being specific to the median price range and to specific areas.

DMAR’s newest stats show the median price of a detached home in the 11-county Denver area rose 2.44% over the past month, another turnaround sign. Prices had been falling slightly during the slow months of late 2025 and early 2026.

However, prices for a typical condo or townhouse continued to drop, now $379,000, down by 2.82% month-over-month.

OFF THE FENCE

“Definitely a lot of fence sitters are getting off the fence,” said Rike Palese, who heads Re/Max Professionals’ Denver Tech Center office.

The effect, he said, is particularly visible with first-time buyers and others looking at properties priced below $1 million.

“Over that price (lower rates are) not as impactful for them,” he said.

That said, Palese adds that he is seeing multiple-offer situations happening at all price ranges in the company’s market area.

“If it’s a good neighborhood, a good location, if it presents well or is newer construction,” he said, “many buyers are after the same things.”

Palese said his office’s sales volume, currently at $3 billion over the year, is well ahead of performance at the same time last year. 

“It’s perked up; it had felt like a lull, and people can’t wait forever,” said Broker-Owner Lydia Lin at One Realty Group, with offices in Denver’s LoHi area just west of downtown.

“We’re seeing bidding wars, but we’re also coming out of low inventory, and the weather has been pristine,” she said.

Lin added that she had shown 30 homes last week in Northwest Denver, close to her offices.

Compass agent Kelly Moye, who reports monthly to DMAR about the Boulder-Broomfield markets, said that activity along the Turnpike corridor is confined to lower prices.

“The market is definitely picking up; buyers seem to be coming out, but not in full force. It’s only at certain price points,” she told The Denver Gazette.

LOWER PRICE POINTS?

“Anything under $700,000 in Boulder and under $600,000 in Broomfield is moving,” Moye said. “We’re seeing the lower price points getting multiple offers, but there’s not a lot of flexibility for the way a house feels. It’s got to look great.”

But even in the higher price ranges, Kentwood agent Jennifer Markus is sensing pressure from buyers now in her market along the south I-25 corridor.

“I’ve been busier than ever,” Markus said. “Buyers are waiting in the wings. They’re going back several times before making a decision to purchase, but if homes are priced appropriately, they will sell.”

The pressure, she adds, is particularly focused on ranch plans, or others with a primary suite on the main level.

“Let me tell you, between $2 and $3 million in all of Greenwood Village, if you want a primary suite on the main level, there are only four houses,” Markus said.

Markus is bringing one like that to market now east of Interstate 25, a 4-bedroom walkout ranch with 6,800 feet of finished space, priced just under $3 million.

“The average buyer does not want an 8,000 to 9,000-square-foot home, and they don’t want the traditional, all brick fronts,” Markus said.

“If you’re spending $2 to $3.5 million for that, you might as well put $4 million into it. That’s what it takes to get a 1980s home on track.”