Monday, June 14, 2010, 10:05am MDT | Modified: Monday, June 14, 2010, 10:00pm

Denver-area luxury-home sales jump 62%

Denver Business Journal

Denver-area sales of homes priced at $1 million or more jumped 61.8 percent in May from a year earlier, according to Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's monthly report on high-end sales.

Fifty-five homes priced at $1 million or more sold in May in the metro area, up from 34 in May 2009, according to the brokerage, a leading local seller of luxury homes.

Median price of the luxury homes that sold in May was $1.28 million. The month's highest priced sale in the metro area was a four-bedroom, seven-bath, 8,000-square-foot home in Boulder that sold for $4.45 million.

Denver itself saw 18 million-dollar-or-more sales in May, while Boulder had 11, Castle Rock had five and Greenwood Village had four, according to the brokerage's monthly "Denver Metro Area Luxury Home Report."

Luxury homes that closed in May took an average of 122 days to sell, versus 131 in May 2009, the report said. And luxury-home sellers got an average of 93 percent of their asking price in May, up from 83 percent a year earlier.

"The increase in million-dollar sales in the Denver area is an encouraging sign that the mid- and upper-end of the local housing market continues to recover from last year’s sharp downturn," Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Colorado, said in a statement.

As with more modestly priced homes, the federal homebuyer tax credit deadline probably helped boost sales of luxury homes last month, Mygatt said. Buyers needed to be in contract by April 30, but have until June 30 to close escrow.

"The next few months will give us a good indication of how strong the housing market recovery will be without government stimulus," Mygatt said. "There are certainly strong headwinds facing the housing sector, including high unemployment, troubles in Europe with the debt market and the recent volatility in the stock market."

But he also said that with the U.S. economy improving, consumer confidence rising and mortgage rates at historic lows, “many buyers seem to be getting off the fence and jumping into the market."

The brokerage said it drew its report from Multiple Listing Service data of all homes sold for more than $1 million in the Denver area by all brokers.

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