r/denverrealestate

Most of the conversation about housing costs in Denver focuses on what you can't control (rates, prices, inventory). But something pretty significant changed on June 30, 2025 that most homeowners missed.

HB 24-1152 now requires every city in the Denver Metro to allow one ADU on any single-family lot as a permitted use by right. No public hearings, no rezoning, just administrative approval. HOAs can no longer ban them outright either.

The practical effect: if you own a home in Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, Arvada, Englewood — almost anywhere in the metro — you can now legally build a rental unit on your property that wasn't possible 18 months ago.

At current Denver rents ($1,200–$1,800/month for a 1-bed), that's a 30–60% reduction in your effective mortgage payment.

Curious if anyone here has actually pulled permits under the new rules yet. Hearing timelines are all over the place depending on the city.

Denver gets written off a lot in real estate investing circles because of the price point. But I've been digging into whether house hacking actually pencils at current prices and rates and the answer is more interesting than I expected.

Quick breakdown on a realistic scenario:

Purchase: $525,000 duplex in Englewood

Down: $18,375 (3.5% FHA, owner-occupied)

Monthly payment at 6.15%: ~$3,100

Rent from second unit: ~$1,650

Effective housing cost: ~$1,450/month

For comparison, renting a comparable unit in the same area runs $1,800–$2,000. You're building equity and living cheaper than renting.

The other piece that changed the calculus: Colorado HB 24-1152 (effective June 2025) essentially made ADUs legal everywhere in the metro. So even a single-family purchase has a path to adding a rental unit — basement conversion runs about $150/sqft here, or $60–90k for a typical unit.

Not trying to oversell it — permit timelines in parts of Arapahoe County are brutal (12–18 months) and construction costs are still high. But for someone planning to owner-occupy anyway, the numbers work better than the headlines suggest.

Anyone else running Denver deals right now? Curious what you're seeing on the ground?

I own a home in the Jefferson Park, just a couple blocks from Empower Field. Close enough that I can see it from my living room.

I love living by the stadium, but I also know that it is kind of an economic dead zone, having a whole neighborhood of parking lots that are only used about 20 times a year. I'm hoping that with the redevelopment, we bring a lot more life and business to the neighborhood.

For the real estate pros out there -- what are your thoughts on the long term effects on the land and property values?

The Case-Shiller headlines this week called Denver the weakest of 20 major metros, worse than Tampa. A lot of people in my office and in my client conversations have been asking about it.

I pulled the actual DMAR April 2026 report to see what's really happening.

Median price in April 2026: $605,000 Median price in April 2025: $604,000 Median price in April 2024: $602,000

That's $3,000 of movement over three years. Inventory is up, days on market held at 14, and sales are roughly flat year over year.

The honest read: the market isn't crashing. It stopped the insane appreciation from 2020-2022 and stabilized. For buyers that actually creates something useful -- seller concessions, inspection contingencies, and negotiating room that hasn't existed since before COVID.

Wrote up a full breakdown here if anyone wants the details: cartwrightmortgage.com/denver-housing-market-stagnation-2026

Hi everyone,

My wife and I are moving to Denver this summer. Does anyone have insight to what the Berkeley neighborhood is like? 4546 Meade St seems like a great property, but I want to learn more about the area before we make an offer.