By Prerna Kapoor, CLHMS | REAL Brokerage | June 1, 2026
Most buyers know the feeling. You walk through a house, you like it, you look at the asking price, and something just feels off. The number is bigger than the house. But how do you actually prove that before you waste an offer on it?
I’ve been on both sides of this question for years now. Here’s how I actually evaluate whether a Colorado home is priced fairly, priced aggressively, or priced for a market that ended two years ago.
Start with price per square foot, but only as a sanity check
Price per square foot is the fastest red flag, not the final answer. Pull the last six months of closed sales in the same neighborhood, same school zone, same age range of home, and within 20% of the square footage. Calculate the median price per square foot of those closed sales. Then compare it to the asking price per square foot on the home you’re looking at.
If the asking number is more than 8-10% above the median, you have a question to answer. Either the home has something special the comps don’t, or the seller is fishing. In the Parker and Castle Pines submarkets I work in most, anything above 12% premium to median has been sitting an average of 47 days as of May 2026 – and most of those listings end up with a price cut.
The trap with price per square foot is that it punishes smaller homes and rewards larger ones. A 1,400 square foot ranch and a 4,200 square foot two-story in the same neighborhood will look wildly different on a per-foot basis, even when both are fairly priced for what they are. Use it to flag, not to decide.
Look at active competition, not just sold comps
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Sold comps tell you what the market accepted three to six months ago. Active competition tells you what buyers are walking away from right now. Pull every active listing within a mile, in the same price band of plus or minus $75,000. If your target home is priced above five or more similar actives, the seller is asking the buyer to choose them over cheaper options. That rarely ends well unless the home is genuinely better.
I had a client last month looking at a home in Highlands Ranch listed at $785,000. There were four similar homes within half a mile between $720,000 and $755,000. The $785,000 listing had been on market 38 days. We made an offer at $720,000 with a 60-day close and got it accepted within a week. The seller had finally accepted what the buyers had been telling them through silence.
Check the price history, not just the current price
Zillow and Redfin both show price history if you scroll past the photos. A home that’s been on the market for 60+ days with one or two reductions is telling you something – and so is a home that just relisted at a slightly lower price after coming off market. The relist trick is common right now. Sellers pull a stale listing, wait two weeks, and put it back on with a small price drop to reset the days-on-market clock. The MLS still knows the truth.
If you see a relist within the last 90 days, your offer can and should reflect that history. The seller has already shown you what they’re willing to walk back from.
Get an opinion of value before you write the offer
If you’re working with a buyer’s agent who knows your target neighborhoods, ask them for a written opinion of value before you commit to an offer price. A good one takes 30-45 minutes and includes three to five active comps, three to five sold comps, and a recommended offer range. Some agents resist doing this because it can be uncomfortable to tell a client the home they love is overpriced. That discomfort is the whole point.
If you’re a buyer without an agent yet, you can get a paid appraisal report for $500-650 in most Colorado metros. For a home you’re seriously considering, that’s cheap insurance against overpaying by $30,000 or $50,000.
The appraisal contingency is your real safety net
Even with all this analysis, sometimes a home appraises below your offer price. That’s where the appraisal contingency becomes the most important sentence in your contract. It lets you renegotiate or walk away if the bank’s independent appraiser sees what you’re seeing.
In the Denver metro, about 8-10% of purchase contracts have an appraisal gap right now, according to the May 2026 Denver Metro Association of Realtors data. That’s higher than the 4-5% you’d see in a balanced market and tells me that some buyers are still chasing asking prices that don’t have data behind them.
The simplest rule I give my clients: if three independent signals – comps, active competition, and price history – all point to the home being above market, treat the asking price as a starting point, not a final answer. A confident offer 5-8% below ask with strong terms gets serious attention right now. A panicked full-price offer on an overpriced home gets you a stressful inspection and an appraisal you might lose anyway.
If you’re looking at a home and want a second set of eyes on whether the price makes sense, I’m happy to take a look. No pressure to use me as your agent, just a conversation about what the data actually shows.
Prerna Kapoor | REALTOR® | Luxury Home Specialist
REAL Brokerage | 720-949-5450 | info@prernakapoor.com
CLHMS • RENE • PSA • ABR | International Sterling Society Award Winner
Prerna specializes in residential real estate across Parker, Aurora, Lone Tree, Castle Pines, Highlands Ranch, Cherry Creek, Greenwood Village, and Centennial. She speaks English, Japanese, and Hindi.
