The leading cause of Denver’s lagging supply is scarcity of skilled labor and finished lots, while in-migration keeps boosting demand.
According to the Denver Post, many Denver builders had already hit 70 percent to 90 percent of their sales goal for 2015 by the end of April, compared to the national 43 percent.
In addition, buyers usually have to wait nine months to a year to occupy their new home after signing, so some builders are deliberately slowing sales.
Compared to 1994, when the metro area had a population of just under 1.9 million and builders pulled somewhere between 13,000 to 17,000 permits a year, this year’s number of permits seems paltry.
With a population of 2,697,478 in the entire Denver-Aurora-Lakewood MSA, area builders only pulled 8,000 single-family permits last year.
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