Verdict grades housing conditions; buyer-timing, investor cash-flow, supply-tightness and county macro scores answer different questions — each in its own section.
Buyer / sellerbuyer-timing lens
Seller's Market
Needs 23.7% correction for affordability
DOM: 44d (falling) · Market Dynamics rolling median · hourly
Score Components
Payment Burden (25%)75
Valuation Gap (25%)10
Supply & Demand (20%)0
Buy vs Rent (15%)100
Cancellation Rate (10%)0
Days on Market (5%)40
Seller-favored market in 80003. Expect to pay at or near list price. Payment burden: 39.1% of median income. A 10% price correction needed to reach 30% affordability threshold. Median days on market: 44. Renting is approximately 112% cheaper than buying (price-to-rent ratio: 25.5).
Buyer Caution
Seller's market. Be prepared to pay near list price.
Competitive market similar to 2021-2022 — limited inventory driving prices above fundamentals.
COOLINGSELLER SLIGHT
Market is cooling with expanding inventory. Sellers hold a slight edge. Prices down 3.0% YoY.
Turnover Index · Live in this ZIPBacktest: 28.2% of later sellers were already in the top 20% (random = 20%, 209 held-out sales) · 11,714 parcels scored nightly
A single median rises whenever expensive homes become a bigger share of what sells, even if no tier got more expensive. These are the tiers underneath it, computed from recorded arms-length deed transactions in Jefferson.
Aggregate median +3.8% YoY in this ZIP, but the under-$500k tier is +2.2% — both the aggregate and the entry tier are rising. Over the same year the under-$500k share of sales moved from 43.7% to 36.4% (-7.3pp) and the $1M+ share from 1.6% to 2.5% (+0.9pp).
Current tiers · 12 months to Aug 25floor 10 sales/tier
3 tiers had too few sales in this ZIP and are shown at county or metro level — see the stamp on each row.
Tier
Median
$/sqft
Sales
Share
Source
Under $250k
$215k
$233
12
2.3%
ZIP
$250k–$500k
$404k
$331
178
34.1%
ZIP
$500k–$750k
$580k
$407
294
56.3%
ZIP
$750k–$1M
$799k
$455
25
4.8%
ZIP
$1M–$1.5M
$1.20M
$515
187
—
COUNTY · Denver, CO
$1.5M–$2M
$1.67M
$523
262
—
COUNTY · Jefferson, CO
$2M+
$2.79M
$620
254
—
COUNTY · Jefferson, CO
All sales (the headline median)
$540k
$377
522
100%
ZIP
Share of sales by tier (quarterly)
If the upper tiers widen over time, the headline median rises on composition alone.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
$1.5M–$2M
$2M+
Median within each tier, against the headline median (quarterly)
The blue line is the single number NAR-style reporting quotes. The gold lines are what each tier actually did. Log scale — the tiers span an order of magnitude, and on a log axis equal slopes mean equal percentage moves, which is the comparison being made.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
All sales (headline)
National context — not local
NAR's aggregate existing-home median for the United States and the West census region. This is the figure the tiers above are a check on. It is national/regional and says nothing about 80003.
United States
West
Copyright, National Association of Realtors. Reprinted with permission. Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED publishes a rolling 13-month window for these series.
Tiers computed from Lotvox parcel and deed substrate through Aug 25 (10 later months withheld as partially loaded). Sample floor 10 sales per tier; below it a figure is drawn from the county or metro and labelled, or left blank. Multi-parcel bulk deeds and duplicate records are excluded.
Jefferson County contextmacro · jobs · debt · migration
ZIP score grades housing; county score adds macro distress (jobs, debt, poverty). They answer different questions.
This ZIP code crosses county lines. Property data shows Jefferson (89.7%) and Adams (10.3%). County metrics below are shown separately for each county.
Jefferson (89.7%)
Adams (10.3%)
ZIP 80003→2 counties
12-Month Direction
-8Stable
Confidence
100%
DeterioratingStableImproving
BuildersLens Market Intelligence
Market Score
35· Weak
Market Score grades housing-market conditions (affordability, valuation, supply). The county Healthy/Moderate/Distressed badge measures economic distress (jobs, debt, poverty) — the two can read differently.
Payment Burden40
35.9%
stretched
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Buy vs Rent0
2.278x
rent advantage
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Valuation13
+68.6%
overvalued
Source: Lotvox comps · Updated 2026-05-15
Supply/Demand3
2.4 mo
balanced
Source: Lotvox MLS · Updated 2026-05-15
Insurance Risk
33/100
moderate
Source: FEMA/NFIP · Updated 2026-04
County distress indicators
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Economic indicators are mixed relative to comparable U.S. counties.
Unemployment Rate
3.7%
CO 3.8%US 4.4%
Near national averages
Source: BLS LAUS · 2026-0667d ago
Poverty Rate
7.4%
CO 9.4%US 12.6%
Lower than most U.S. counties
Median Household Income
$107,800
CO $94,510US $82,006
Higher than most U.S. counties
Cost of Living (RPP)
112.5
CO 111.8US 100.3
Higher than many comparable counties
Home Value (ZHVI)$620,939
County data: BLS, Census ACS, CDC, FBI UCR, Federal Reserve, USDA · Coverage derived from property records · Counties with <2% coverage excluded as likely data errors
