Why Is the Boulder Median So Hard to Pin Down? Reading a Month That Swung Between Medians

Which Boulder number is the median?

All of them are, for different groups of homes. The citywide $885,000 covers houses, condominiums and townhouses sold in August 2026. The Redfin $954,000 covers all home types over three months, which puts it in the same range. The Realtor.com sold median of $987,500 is for August and sits between them. The single-family figures are higher because houses cost more than attached homes. The local team's single-family median for homes under $2 million is $1,000,999 and the year-to-date median for all single-family homes is $1,299,900. The attached median is $370,000, which is 28% of the year-to-date single-family median, a ratio this brief computes.

The gap between the two local sources is worth noticing. One shows a single-family median under $2 million of $1,000,999 for August, and the other shows $1,157,500 for August for all single-family homes. The first excludes homes above $2 million and the second does not, and the difference of $156,501 is the effect of the upper tail, a reading that is an inference since the two pages use different data cuts. The other source describes the same effect when it says that on a $1.3 million market a handful of high-end or entry closings move the median by six figures.

The monthly swing is the most useful lesson. The single-family median was $1,355,000 on 83 closings in July and $1,157,500 on 62 closings in August, 14.6% lower, and the page says that July's closings skewed expensive and August's skewed toward the middle. It adds that days on market went from 87 to 69 in the same two months. Nobody's home lost $197,500 in a month. The median is the middle of whatever closed, and a month with 62 closings is a small sample for a town of this kind.

Zillow and Realtor.com add two more kinds of figure. Zillow's $948,693 is a modeled index of all homes, which makes it a statement about estimated values. Realtor.com's median listing price of $1,075,000 is an asking price, down 3.67% on the year and down 19.20% over three years, while its sold median of $987,500 is up 12.22% over three years. The listing median is 8.9% above the sold median, a gap this brief computes. A seller who has read the asking price may expect more than the sold median suggests, and the 98% sale-to-list ratio on the same page, with homes selling 2.22% below the asking price on average, is the figure that bridges them.

Five pages cannot all be used as a price. The sound way to read them is as a range. Citywide, all home types, the middle of the market was $885,000 to $987,500 in the summer of 2026. For single-family homes it was above $1.15 million in August and about $1.3 million over the year. A home that is neither a typical house nor a typical condominium, which describes most of the homes Maison Off-Market is asked about, sits outside all of those numbers.

Sources as cited. The measures differ and the figures are not directly comparable. Commercial content; not independently verified.

Is Boulder tight, balanced, cool or somewhat competitive?

The pages use four labels. Redfin calls Boulder somewhat competitive, with homes receiving two offers on average and selling in about 53 days, and says the average home sells for about 3% below list price. Realtor.com describes a balanced market in August and quotes the Realtor Hotness Index as saying this is a cool market with homes selling in a median of 63 days. The local team says single-family homes under $2 million remain tight, at 3.3 months of supply, favoring sellers, while attached homes sit at 7.2 months, favoring buyers. The second local report says 4.2 months of supply for single-family homes is closer to balanced, and the middle of a range of 3 to 6 months.

These readings do not conflict as much as they seem. Months of supply of 3.3 for single-family homes under $2 million and 4.2 for all single-family homes differ because the second includes the homes above $2 million, which sell more slowly. The local team says the same: the $2 million to $5 million segment is the one that moved fastest in August, with 24 homes under contract against 13 a year earlier and days on market of 35 against 84, and closed dollar volume in that range up 21% to $48.6 million. That page is a brokerage's own account, and it is one month. A reader should not take it as a trend.

The clocks run from 32 days to 78. Zillow shows homes going pending in about 32 days. Redfin shows a median of 53 days on market for three months, up from 48, and says homes sell in 59 days in its text. Realtor.com shows 63 days, up 1.61% on the year and up 36.96% over three years. The True North report shows 72 days from listing to an accepted offer, year to date, and 69 in August. The local team shows 48 days for single-family homes under $2 million, down from 66, and 78 days for attached homes under $2 million, up from 63. The longest is 2.4 times the shortest, though they are measured differently, and several of them measure time to a contract and not time to a closing.

Redfin splits the market by home type. In the page as fetched, three groups of homes sell for about 3%, 1% and 1% below list price and go pending in around 59, 27 and 22 days, and the alternatives that can sell for around list or about 1% above list go pending in 28, 6 and 5 days. The page text does not label every group in the version fetched, so this brief reports only the spread of 5 to 59 days, which shows that the median hides a wide gap between the quickest homes and the typical one.

The county picture is softer than the city picture. The local team shows 314 sales across Boulder County in August, down 20%, and a county median of $700,000, down 7%. Citywide, dollar volume was $123.5 million, down 11%. Redfin shows 370 homes sold in June, down 6.6%. Taken together, the pages describe a market where fewer homes are changing hands, prices are about flat, and the upper segment is moving faster than the lower. The True North page adds that the town adds almost no net-new single-family homes, since construction is largely rebuilding on existing lots. That is its claim, and this brief has not tested it.

What does the Census say about the postal area, and who owns the homes?

The Census data are for a postal area, which the sheet pairs with Boulder, and the city is larger than any one postal area, so the figures describe the part of Boulder that falls inside it and some homes nearby. The postal area has 25,383 residents and 11,952 homes. Of these, 11,358 are occupied and 594 are vacant, a vacancy rate of 5.0%. Compare that with a resort town on a barrier island, where most homes are vacant. In Boulder the homes are lived in.

Of the occupied homes, 7,951 (70.0%) are owner-occupied and 3,407 (30.0%) are rented. The median household income is $126,558 and the median gross rent is $2,075, which is $24,900 a year. Realtor.com shows a median rent for the city of $2,000 a month, down 14.89% on the year and down 23.52% over three years. The two are within 4% of each other, a gap this brief computes, and the fall in the advertised rent is a sign that renters have more choice than they did.

The Census median value of owner-occupied homes is $1,210,200, with a margin of error of $92,474. That is 93% of the single-family year-to-date median of $1,299,900 and 1.23 times the Realtor.com sold median of $987,500. The Census figure is what owners say their homes are worth, averaged over five years to 2024, and it covers owner-occupied homes only, which are mostly single-family. It is a reminder that a median that includes condominiums understates what a house is worth.

The stock is mixed in age. Of 11,952 homes, 914 were built before 1940, 1,722 in the 1950s and 2,242 in the 1970s, and 6,370 (53.3%) were built before 1980. The median year built is 1978. At the other end, 841 were built in the 2010s and 190 since 2020, which together are 8.6% of the stock. The True North page says Boulder issues permits every year but that building is mostly scrape-and-replace, so the count of homes barely moves. That would fit a stock in which many of the homes are old and some of the lots are being rebuilt, though the Census does not show rebuilding directly.

Source: Census Reporter, American Community Survey 2020-2024 five-year estimates, tables B25034, B25077, B25003, B25002, B19013 and B25064. Percentages and ratios are this brief's arithmetic.

How does Boulder compare with the towns along the corridor?

The True North report compares Boulder with Longmont and Loveland, and the comparison shows why a Boulder owner reads the town median with care. The single-family median year to date through August is $1,299,900 in Boulder, $610,000 in Longmont and $528,750 in Loveland. The Boulder figure is 2.1 times the Longmont figure and 2.5 times the Loveland figure, ratios this brief computes. The days on market are 72, 57 and 70, and the months of supply in August are 4.2, 2.8 and 3.0.

The page draws a conclusion from this, that Boulder is the looser market by about 1.2 to 1.4 months, and that a move-up buyer who sells in Boulder and buys in Longmont or Loveland is selling into the looser market and buying into the tighter one. That is the page's reading and it describes the buyer's side of a move. For a seller, the same figures mean that Boulder supply is higher than nearby supply, so a Boulder home competes with more others.

The local team's update gives the same picture for the towns near Boulder. Lafayette had 2.3 months of supply in August with a median of $830,000, up 5%, Louisville's sales fell 36% to 21 closings with 2.8 months of supply, and Longmont's closed sales fell 11% to 124. Fewer sales and thin supply are not the same thing, and the pages show both at once.

One more number puts Boulder's price level in view. The Census median owner-occupied value for the postal area is $1,210,200, and the Realtor.com median rent is $2,000 a month. The year-to-date single-family median is $1,299,900. A seller of a home near that median is selling into a town where the middle of the market is, by the pages' own figures, flat on the year. A seller of a home far above it is selling into a segment where, the local team says, demand picked up in August. A seller of a home far below it is selling into the attached market, where the same page shows 7.2 months of supply. Readers comparing markets can also read the Montclair brief and the Breckenridge brief.

What should an owner ask, and what does a private sale change?

Ask whether a figure covers houses, condominiums or both, and whether it excludes the top of the market. Ask how many sales sit behind it and which month. With 62 single-family closings in August, a page said, a few sales can move the median by six figures. A seller who knows that will read a headline price as a rough guide.

A private sale changes how a home reaches a buyer. With Maison Off-Market there are no showings and no neighbors talking about a sale, the closing date can be flexible so that an owner has time to find a new home, there are no commission costs, there are no closing costs and there are no inspections or repairs. Where a page says that a home at the upper end can take longer than the town as a whole, it is the wait and the public exposure that a private sale avoids. This brief does not claim that a private sale always brings a higher price than a public listing.

Fee arithmetic shows what the commission point means in dollars, without assuming any rate. Each 1% of a sale price is $8,850 at $885,000, $9,540 at $954,000 and $12,999 at $1,299,900. At 3% those amounts are $26,550, $28,620 and $38,997. At 5% they are $44,250, $47,700 and $64,995. These are illustrations of what a percentage means on the figures in this brief, and they are not a statement of what any agent charges or what any sale would cost.

Privacy is often the first thing owners raise. A public listing puts photographs, a price and every price change in front of anyone with a phone, and in a university town with many neighbors in close contact the news travels. A private sale keeps those details out of view. That is a matter of preference and not a claim about price.

Timing is the other thing an owner controls. A public listing starts a clock, and the pages above show 32 to 78 days to a contract, before the closing. A private sale lets the owner choose the closing date, which matters most to people who need to find the next home first.

If you are weighing a sale of a Boulder home, one conversation costs nothing and obliges you to nothing. We ask about the home, the timing you would like and what you would need from a buyer, and we say plainly whether a private sale fits.

If you would like a private, no-obligation offer for a Boulder home, call 401-219-4207 or use the contact form on this site.

Methodology and limitations

Prices, days on market, counts and ratios come from a local team's August 2026 update, a Redfin page with data to June 2026, a Zillow page updated August 31, 2026, a Realtor.com page with indicators as of August 2026 and a second local report with data through August 2026. The pages cover different periods, home types and boundaries, and most are commercial pages, so they are not independent of each other. Redfin's per-type breakdown was not fully labeled in the version fetched, and this brief reports only the spread.

Census figures come from the American Community Survey 2020-2024 five-year estimates for the postal area the sheet pairs with Boulder, through Census Reporter. The postal area is not the same as the city. Percentages, gaps, ratios and fee amounts are this brief's own arithmetic and are labeled as such. Where a reading goes beyond what a page says, it is called an inference. No agent names, contact details or street addresses from the pages are reproduced.

Conclusion

The Boulder record shows medians of $885,000, $954,000, $987,500 and $1,299,900, a single-family month that swung by $197,500, waits from 32 to 78 days and four labels for the same market. The numbers differ because the pages measure different homes and months, and because a month of 62 closings has a median that moves.

It does not fix a price for any one home. The choice between a public listing and a private sale comes down to whether an owner would rather meet showings, inspections and a public clock, or sell quietly on a date that suits them. Maison Off-Market speaks only to sellers, and a conversation costs nothing.