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Discover how the generational divide shapes Denver mortgage trends
Nearly 73% of Denver homeowners carry a mortgage. That’s the second-highest rate in the country, behind only Washington, D.C., according to Realtor.com research.
Nationally, homeowners own nearly 40% of U.S. homes outright, marking the highest percentage ever recorded.
But Denver’s mortgage-free rate rests at a mere 27%, far below the national average.
Several factors explain Denver’s high mortgage rates:
- Rising home values: Home prices have surged, making cash purchases challenging.
- In-migration of buyers: Many newcomers from pricier markets, like California, are relocating to Denver, often outbidding residents and driving prices higher.
- High competition: Over the past few years, demand for homes has exceeded supply, driven by both new buyers and existing homeowners looking to move. Although supply has increased this year, prices remain high.
- First-time buyers: Denver has a significant number of first-time homebuyers who typically enter the market with little equity and rely on mortgages to finance their purchases, which contributes to high mortgage rates.
Since 2010, the trend towards mortgage independence has increased by 8%, while the percentage of financed homes has decreased by roughly 7%.
In Denver, just as across much of the country, younger buyers are grappling with staggering home prices, mounting student debt, and elevated interest rates, making entry into the housing market increasingly daunting.
At the same time, 78% of older homeowners indicate they plan to “age in place,” disrupting traditional homebuying and selling pathways, reducing inventory, and intensifying competition for first-time buyers.
Many older homeowners who leveraged ultra-low mortgage rates during the pandemic now feel little incentive to sell their properties, fearing that moving to a new home would mean facing significantly higher borrowing costs.
Data from a recent Redfin survey underscores this trend, revealing that only 20% of older homeowners are considering a move to a 55+ community, with just 10% contemplating moving in with adult children or into assisted living.
The overwhelming majority—78%—plan to remain in their homes indefinitely, leading to a growing generational divide in housing.
Looking aheadEventually, baby boomers’ homes will hit the market. And there may not be enough options to meet demand.
The senior housing sector suffered huge losses during the pandemic.
Demand nosedived due to high infection rates, deaths, and social-distancing restrictions imposed on residents and their families.
Labor shortages sent costs soaring. Many projects defaulted on their mortgages after interest rates spiked.
Occupancy rates returned to prepandemic levels last year, and rent growth resumed.
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Senior housing occupancy rates in the United States rose by 0.3 percentage points, increasing from 87.1% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 87.4% in the first quarter of 2025, according to data from NIC MAP.
“Older adults are moving into senior housing at a rapid pace, and that trend will continue given the wave of Baby Boomers and many more ‘solo agers’ who don’t have a caregiver to rely on as a safety net,” said Lisa McCracken, NIC’s head of research and analytics.
“The industry needs to ramp up development for supply to catch up with demand, but we don’t foresee any meaningful movement here in 2025 given current market conditions.”
The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.
Former Colorado Department of Labor and Employment office building up for sale
Colorado is trying to sell an office building in Denver’s Cap Hill neighborhood that was previously used by the state’s labor department.
The three-story building at 251 E. 12th Ave. is just shy of 130,000 square feet and was built in 1957. It sits on an acre between Grant and Sherman streets, two blocks south of the Capitol building.
A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said in an email that the department shifted “to more remote work models” in the wake of the pandemic and moved staff from the 12th Avenue building to its main office at 633 17th St. about a year ago.
JLL is marketing the 12th Avenue building for sale. The brokerage’s marketing materials do not list a price but call the property an “excellent Cap Hill location for an owner-user or fantastic redevelopment opportunity for multifamily.”
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The site is zoned C-MX-8, which generally allows a mix of uses up to 8 stories. Denver’s assessor values the property at $18.1 million, records show.
A portion of the existing building was once used for parking, according to JLL. It was converted into additional office space in 2003.
Labor department employees who moved from Cap Hill to 633 17th St., meanwhile, are on the move again.
The department is in the process of downsizing into 131,000 square feet at 707 17th St. That’s about a third less than the combined 197,000 square feet the department occupied at 621 and 633 17th St.
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Complex property deal involving Lakewood, Jeffco Schools and a nonprofit group has landed in court
A cash-strapped school district that’s looking to unload a shuttered elementary school.
A nonprofit human services agency that’s in need of a bigger home as it serves more than 60,000 households a year.
And a judge who’s telling Colorado’s fifth-largest city not to make any moves on the whole situation — a complex deal that would allow the agency to move into the school — until she can determine whether everything is on the up and up.
That’s the strange nexus at which Lakewood, Jeffco Public Schools and The Action Center have found themselves after their proposed real estate deal was challenged in court by a former Lakewood city councilwoman who thinks the whole arrangement is “taking place in secret.”
“Government should have to do this in a way that’s transparent and above board — and includes the public in this kind of decision-making,” said Anita Springsteen, who’s also an attorney. “I think it’s unethical. I think it’s wrong.”
The deal on the table calls for Lakewood to purchase Emory Elementary — which closed three years ago because of declining enrollment — from Jeffco Public Schools for $4 million. At the same time, the city would buy The Action Center’s existing facility on West 14th Avenue for $4 million.
The Action Center, in turn, would buy Emory from the city for $1 million when the organization, which for more than a half-century has provided free clothing and food, family services and financial assistance to those in need, moves to its new home in the former school on South Teller Street.
The core problem, Springsteen says, is that Lakewood did not properly announce two September 2024 executive sessions during which officials discussed details of the deal in private. In a lawsuit, she accused the city of violating Colorado’s open meetings law, which requires governments to state, in advance and “in as much detail as possible,” what will be discussed behind closed doors “without compromising the purpose for the executive session.”
Jefferson County District Judge Meegan Miloud had enough questions last week about how Lakewood gave public notice of its executive sessions that she imposed a temporary restraining order on the City Council — forbidding it from voting on three ordinances that would authorize the deal to move forward.
The council had been scheduled to consider the measures Monday night.
Miloud said the city’s executive session notices on the council’s September 2024 agendas were “so vague that the public has no way of identifying or discerning what is being negotiated or what property is being assessed.”
On Tuesday morning, the judge conducted a hearing on the matter but did not make a ruling. She called another hearing for next Monday and said in a new order that her injunction remains in effect.
The fast-moving situation has Lakewood playing defense. A special council meeting that had been set for Wednesday night — to once again put the ordinances up for a council vote — will now have to be rescheduled, city spokeswoman Stacie Oulton said.
Lakewood, she contended, has been open throughout the process.
“The public process has included updates from the city manager during public City Council meetings, and the city has followed the public notification process for these agenda items,” she told The Denver Post in an email this week. “Additionally, the proposed end user of the property, the Action Center, has had several public community meetings about its proposal.”
Anita Springsteen, a lawyer and former Lakewood city councilwoman, is leading a challenge to a complex land deal between the City of Lakewood, Jeffco Public Schools and The Action Center that would bring the humans services nonprofit to the former Emory Elementary School in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. She posed for a portrait outside the former school. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post) Questions about meetings, market valueJeff Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said it was “unusual” for a judge, via a temporary restraining order, to preempt a city council from casting a vote.
But case law, he said, makes it clear that governing bodies in Colorado must provide as much detail as possible when they announce closed-door sessions — short of disclosing or jeopardizing strategies and positions that are crucial in real estate negotiations.
“In general, an announcement that doesn’t give any indication of the topic is not enough information for the public,” Roberts said. “In most cases — and that’s why it’s in the law — you must tell the public what the executive session is about.”
That standard, he said, was upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals in 2020, when it ruled that the Basalt Town Council violated the state’s open meetings law several times in 2016 by not properly announcing the topic of private deliberations it would be having regarding a former town manager.
In the Lakewood school matter, the alleged open meetings violations are not the only thing that bothers Springsteen. She objects to the structure of the proposed real estate transaction, saying it would be a sweetheart deal for The Action Center and a waste of money for taxpayers.
“They are stealing money out of our pockets,” said Springsteen, who served on City Council from 2019 to 2023.
Lakewood, she said, would be underpaying for the 17-acre Emory Elementary School parcel, overpaying for The Action Center’s current facility and basically giving the school property away to the nonprofit.
“For the city to not intend to own the property, but to buy it on behalf of a nongovernmental organization — when did we become an agent for other agencies?” Springsteen said.
According to the Jefferson County assessor’s site, The Action Center’s buildings on West 14th Avenue have a total value of about $2 million, while the city has proposed purchasing them for double that. The assessor’s office lists Emory Elementary as having a total value of up to $12 million.
Springsteen said she is flummoxed by the Jeffco school district’s willingness to sell the elementary school to Lakewood for a third of that valuation.
“What bothers me most is the way Jeffco schools is handling this,” she said. “The district didn’t even have a school resource officer at Evergreen High School because of budgetary issues.”
She was referring to when a 16-year-old student critically wounded two fellow students at the foothills high school last month. There was no SRO at the school at the time of the shooting. Evergreen High School’s principal told reporters the district had “deprioritized” SROs for its mountain schools leading up to the shooting.
The school district is looking at a $39 million budget hole for the coming year.
A spokesperson for Jeffco schools said a decision on whether to sell Emory Elementary to Lakewood hadn’t been made yet. That vote, by the district’s school board, is expected Nov. 13.
Raven Price picks out food at The Action Center’s food bank in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post) ‘We need to bring this into our community’Pam Brier, the CEO of The Action Center, said property values don’t tell the full story.
“There are many instances locally and nationally of municipalities helping to support the affordable acquisition of properties for organizations like The Action Center — who are serving such a critical need in our community,” she said, “and ultimately saving taxpayer money by helping to meet people’s basic needs.”
On Wednesday, she provided The Denver Post a May 2024 appraisal done by Centennial-based Masters Valuation Services that valued the organization’s current facility — made up of a 14,960-square-foot building and a 15,540-square-foot building — at $4 million.
Her organization, Brier said, serves 300 households a day. It provides a free grocery and clothing market, financial assistance, free meals, family coaching, skills classes and workforce support to people who are down on their luck.
“As public dollars dwindle, our work is more important than ever,” she said. “Without organizations like The Action Center to provide food, clothing and other critical support, individuals and families fall into crisis, needing assistance that will cost taxpayers and cities so much more.”
Oulton, the Lakewood city spokeswoman, said it was not unusual for cities and counties across metro Denver to “provide financial support in a variety of ways to nonprofits that serve their communities.”
“Additionally, Jeffco Public Schools has clearly communicated to the city that the district views the value of this project in more than the dollars involved, because the district’s priority has been to see former schools used in a way that will continue providing services and support to Jeffco Public Schools students and their families,” Oulton said.
Diana Losacco, a 48-year resident of Lakewood who lives about a mile from the Emory site, was one of more than three dozen people who urged the city to pursue the purchase and sale of the school to The Action Center on the Lakewood Speaks website.
Raven Price and her 4-year-old son, Gabriel Luna, head home with a wagon full of food they selected from The Action Center’s food bank in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post) Related Articles- Lakewood’s controversial parkland measure grinds residential projects — even small ones — to a halt
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“This will provide opportunities to people to become self-sufficient, which will provide significant financial savings for our community,” Losacco told The Post in an interview. “We need to bring this into our community. It needs to be in a neighborhood.”
But not her neighborhood, said Katherine Byrne. Byrne has owned Stockton Pet Hospital on South Wadsworth Boulevard for six years. The business, which was founded in 1964, sits just a few hundred feet west of Emory Elementary.
There are enough challenges with assaults, shots fired and drug dealing in the vicinity, especially along the nearby bike path, Byrne said. Because The Action Center won’t be providing overnight shelter space at its new location for people who are homeless, she worries about where people using the organization’s services might go once the doors close.
And she wonders why the city didn’t look at wealthier areas of Lakewood for potential sites to relocate The Action Center.
“It’s just a ridiculous, unsavory plan to put this center in the middle of a neighborhood that didn’t know it was coming,” Byrne said.
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Veteran-Owned Homesight Hosts Free Seminar on Careers in Home Inspection - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Veteran-Owned Homesight Hosts Free Seminar on Careers in Home Inspection - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Veteran-Owned Homesight Hosts Free Seminar on Careers in Home Inspection - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Veteran-Owned Homesight Hosts Free Seminar on Careers in Home Inspection - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Denver wants to increase fines against landlords who don’t comply with city’s new residential rental license program
Denver regulators want to step up enforcement against landlords who refuse to comply with the city’s nascent license program for residential rental properties.
The program, passed by the Denver City Council in 2021, requires all residential rentals in the city to be licensed. The goal, officials said at the time, “is to proactively enforce minimum required housing standards to ensure public health, safety and welfare.”
Most landlords have complied with this requirement, city officials say. The Denver Department of Excise and Licenses has issued more than 27,000 licenses encompassing 203,000 rental units as of this month, city figures show.
But there are still a small number of landlords who have yet to comply with the program — and city officials feel the current fine structure is inadequate to incentivize good behavior.
Excise and Licenses officials on Tuesday presented a proposed ordinance to the City Council’s Finance and Business Committee that would increase the maximum penalty to $5,000 per violation, per day. That’s more than five times the current top fine of $999.
Regulators said changes are needed to align licensing penalties with fines issued by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment for housing code violations. There’s a perception of inconsistency if these fines are disparate, while some landlords may choose to pay the fines rather than correct the issues, Erica Rodgers, Excise and License’s policy director, told councilmembers.
The $5,000 fine represents the top end of the city’s fine structure — one officials hope to use infrequently.
The city issued more than 2,700 warnings to noncompliant landlords during the initial enforcement phase of the licensing program. Regulators dinged 431 landlords with a first citation, a $150 fine. Sixty-six operators received a second citation, a $500 fine. And the city issued just 24 third citations, which came with the maximum $999 fine.
“The majority (of landlords) are good actors,” said Diana Romero Campbell, councilmember for District 4, “but a few have taken advantage of our system.”
Tenant advocates applauded the proposed changes, saying the current fine structure does little to ensure accountability for larger, corporate landlords.
Still, “this is not a silver bullet,” said Eida Altman, director of the Denver Metro Tenants’ Union. “We actually have to use these fines.”
Drew Hamrick, general counsel and senior vice president of government affairs for the Colorado Apartment Association, called the ordinance “problematic” because it “discourages investment in rental housing.”
“People have to be willing to risk the capital to invest in Denver housing,” he told councilmembers.
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The licensing program has been under scrutiny since its implementation.
A Denver Post investigation in May found the city has handed out licenses to building owners with years of documented violations, who continue to neglect their tenants immediately after receiving the all-clear.
The newspaper reviewed public health inspection records for the five most-fined apartment buildings in Denver, as well as several of the city’s most frequently cited properties. All but one received licenses, despite allegations from residents and serious habitability infractions.
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Checkr, Chevron decisions push downtown vacancy up again in third quarter
Office vacancy in downtown Denver ticked up again in the third quarter, driven heavily by decisions at a tech firm and an oil and gas giant.
At the end of September, total office vacancy in the city center was 37.7%, according to CBRE. That was up 0.6 percentage point from the real estate brokerage’s adjusted second-quarter figure.
Total vacancy includes both direct vacancy, in which unused space is marketed by a landlord, and space marketed for sublease by a tenant. Downtown direct vacancy itself was 34.8% last quarter.
CBRE’s definition of “downtown” includes the Central Business District and LoDo, as well as LoHi’s Platte Street and a portion of Uptown. It doesn’t include RiNo, Cherry Creek or other spots farther afield.
Downtown saw negative net absorption of 171,000 square feet in the second quarter, according to CBRE. That means 171,000 additional square feet — equivalent to seven floors at Republic Plaza — were available at the end of June compared with the end of March.
Absorption can be heavily influenced by just one or two large companies. In the second quarter, Xcel’s decision to move to RiNo accounted for the entirety of the negative 270,000 square feet of absorption.
In the third quarter, tech firm Checkr and Chevron were the key firms.
Checkr, a San Francisco-based background check company, vacated 73,000 square feet in the 18th Street Atrium building at 1621 18th St. in the third quarter, according to CBRE.
While the company still has a floor in the building for now — its initial lease was for 92,000 square feet — Checkr will eventually give that up when it moves into a much smaller space at 1125 17th St. The company leased 28,000 square feet there, according to CBRE.
Houston-based Chevron, meanwhile, vacated 108,000 square feet in Granite Tower at 1099 18th St. in the third quarter, according to CBRE. Chevron is attempting to sublet the space, which it acquired as part of its 2023 purchase of PDC Energy. In May, Chevron told the state that it intended to lay off 125 employees based out of the office.
The biggest downtown lease signing of the third quarter came from another oil and gas giant, EOG Resources, which took 100,000 square feet at 1550 17th St.
While great news for the owner of that building, EOG’s deal will ultimately result in more downtown vacancy. That’s because the company is downsizing — the space will eventually replace EOG’s existing 165,000-square-foot lease at 600 17th St.
Ken Gooden, a broker at JLL who represents tenants, said he’s hopeful that the numbers won’t get much worse.
“I feel like the worst is definitely behind us, but it’s going to be a long recovery,” he said.
Gooden said he still doesn’t see a clear catalyst that will transform the nature of downtown or turn the tide on leasing. He noted that the office sector in San Francisco is benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence companies.
“I don’t think there’s any desire for them to come to Denver,” he said. A prepandemic trend of tech companies adding offices here has slowed.
But Gooden said his clients that are already located downtown generally aren’t talking about leaving it. One client is “looking very seriously” at 1900 Lawrence, the skyscraper completed in 2024 that needs to secure more tenants before its loan comes due in mid-2027.
For all the focus on downtown as a whole, however, one end of it has much deeper challenges. Total office vacancy is 46% — nearly one in two floors empty — in what CBRE considers Uptown, an area that includes the Wells Fargo Center and blocks to the east.
“I don’t have any clients looking there, which is scary,” Gooden said of the east end of downtown.
The numbers get better the closer you get to Union Station.
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Downtown’s nicest office buildings, known as “Class A,” continue to fare better than average. But they too had negative absorption for the quarter, and the stats are still grim, with total vacancy at 31.2%, according to CBRE.
Across the broader metropolitan area, total vacancy was 28.2%, according to CBRE, with negative absorption of 264,000 square feet.
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Second Cherry Creek gateway corner sells for $3M
Doug McKinnon has sold another of his Cherry Creek gateway corners.
The owner of real estate firm McKinnon & Associates last week sold 55-65 S. Colorado Blvd., two parcels that form the northwest corner of Colorado and Bayaud Avenue, for $3.2 million, according to public records.
The undeveloped site is 0.38 acres, so the deal works out to $191 a square foot.
McKinnon said the local buyer “will be utilizing the G-RO-5 zoning we put in place to develop an office building for his firm’s use on the site.”
The property was purchased by DEG Realestate LLC, an entity formed by Alla Feldman with an office address corresponding to a home within Cherry Creek Country Club. Reached by phone, Feldman declined to comment on the purchase.
No development plans have been submitted to Denver for the site.
The corner lot is one of four on the outskirts of Cherry Creek — all marketed as a redevelopment opportunity — that a McKinnon-led group bought in 2019 for $5.5 million. The other lots were the southwest corner of Colorado and Bayaud and the southwest and northwest corners of Colorado and First Avenue.
McKinnon got the sites rezoned in 2020 after striking an unusually detailed “good neighbor agreement” with surrounding residents. Then, he put “Cherry Creek Gateway” signage up at each of the properties indicating they were for sale.
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In 2023, McKinnon sold the southwest corner of Colorado and Bayaud for $1.4 million.
He still owns the corners at Colorado and First. He bought a neighboring parcel there for $1.8 million in 2023, giving him a larger footprint at the intersection.
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