Forbes Magazine, which only 10 months ago dubbed Denver as America's best city to buy a home -- now declares the Mile High City the second-worst housing market in America.
"Denver doesn't come to mind as a housing-crisis hot spot, but the city that once looked like it would escape the housing bust unscathed now shows signs of strain," Forbes said in its report. "More than 42,000 homes are on the market in the Denver metro, 27 percent more than last year."
Forbes said it evaluated U.S. metro areas with more than 1 million people, ranking them on increase inhome inventory as well as changes in single-family home sales, up or down, between the fourth quarters of 2008 and 2009.
Milwaukee ranked as the worst U.S. housing market in Forbes' report, followed by Denver, Los Angeles and St. Louis in a tie for third, and San Francisco.
Only last June, Forbes raved about Denver as a place to buy a home. "While the majority of the nation's housing markets are still working toward a bottom, some cities are boasting fundamentals that make them good places to buy a home now," Forbes said then.
That list was based on change in price per square foot, frequency of real-estate transactions, and how evenly distributed home-sales activity was in each metro area.
And in May 2009, Denver was named America's No. 1 city on the verge of a real estate recovery in a segment on NBC's "Today" show. Real estate expert Barbara Corcoran, a regular guest on the show, said Denver more than any other U.S. city is "clearly on a rebound."
Read more: Denver Business Journal
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