Denver's luxury market had its strongest summer since 2022, according to the numbers everyone is quoting. Those numbers start at $1 million. In Denver, luxury starts at $2.4 million, which means the story being reported and the market I work in are not the same thing.
Two sales from August show why that matters.
A single family home in Littleton closed at $7,388,943 after one day on the market. That same month, the highest condo sale in the metro, a $3.8 million residence at the Four Seasons, closed after 326 days and $1,195,000 below asking.
Both sit inside what the headlines call the luxury market. They have almost nothing in common.
The numbers, and what they cover
Through July, Denver recorded 3,569 sales above $1 million totaling $5.83 billion, the strongest run the high end has seen since 2022. Sales rose 6.4% in May and 6.9% in July against last year. The Denver Post reported that most buyers at this level are paying cash or borrowing against portfolios, which is why a 7% mortgage rate has done so little to slow them down. When the rate does not apply to you, it does not change your timeline.
But $1 million is where the data starts, not where luxury starts. I work above $2.4 million, and that part of the market behaves differently enough that a blended number tells you very little.
Houses and condos have separated
August 2026, sales above $1M | Single family | Condo |
|---|---|---|
Share of sales | 95.6% | 4.4% |
Days on market | 47 | 99 |
Change from last year | Down from 51 | Up from 50 |
That is not one market cooling. That is two markets moving in opposite directions. The Four Seasons sale is the example: a $3.8 million residence in one of the best buildings in the city took most of a year and gave up more than a million dollars. A single family home ten times the metro median sold in a day.
Finished beats everything
Buyers at this level are not taking on projects. They pay a premium for a house where the decisions are already made, and they wait out anything that asks something of them. Dated or overpriced properties sit, and the reduction usually arrives eventually.
Sellers get the order backwards. Kitchens and baths get the budget. The exterior gets what is left. A buyer decides whether they want the house before they reach the front door.
I had a seller in Cherry Hills Village this summer who had already remodeled her interior beautifully. My advice was to spend the next dollar on the landscape, and I brought in my landscaper to do it. The Denver Gazette wrote about it last week. Coming out of a drought, a tired yard undercuts every choice made inside.
The same logic held at a different price point. A house I sold in Denver on Krameria near 6th Avenue Parkway had been maintained rather than made over, and it moved quickly because nothing was waiting for the buyers on day one.
What this looks like in Cherry Hills Village
The median sale price here last year was $2.3 million, and the spread between micro-neighborhoods is wide. Buell Mansion, Cherryridge, Glenmoor and Old Cherry Hills each price differently, and a metro-wide statistic will not tell you what your street is doing. See the neighborhood guide for how each one is trading.
If you are selling: the market is strong for a specific kind of house. Finished beats large. Price against what sold on your street this year, not against what your neighbor listed at in spring and later reduced.
If you are buying: the leverage is real but narrow. It is on condos, on anything that has been sitting, and on houses nobody else wants to fix. It does not exist on the finished house in the neighborhood everyone wants.
If you are thinking about a move in the next year, ask me what your home would bring. You will get a straight read on where it sits and what it would take to get the number you want.
Questions I get
What price is considered luxury in Denver?
Over $2.4 million. Market reports commonly use $1 million, which covers a wide range of houses and makes the data less useful than it looks.
How long are homes taking to sell in Cherry Hills Village?
Finished houses are still moving quickly. Anything dated or overpriced is sitting, and that gap has widened through the fall.
Are high-end buyers affected by mortgage rates?
Less than the rest of the market. Most are paying cash or borrowing against assets, so a 7% rate is not what decides whether they move.
Coleen Sanders, fourth-generation broker, Cherry Hills Village resident, $475M+ in career sales.
