We Tested 25 Denver Housing Claims. Only 8 Held Up.
Denver · August 2026
We tested 25 things people say about Denver housing.
Only 8 of them held up.
claims showed no relationship at all once the numbers were checked.
Denver's assessor publishes who owns every home and where that owner gets their mail. When the two addresses differ, the owner does not live there. Put that beside Zillow's rent and value figures and you can check what people say about this market instead of repeating it.
Every Denver neighborhood, by who lives there
Each mark is one of the 154 neighborhoods. Further right means more homes lived in by their owner.
Are the ZIPs that appreciated most still appreciating?
The clearest pattern in the data.
Each dot is one Denver ZIP code. If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up less than once in 100,000 tries.
All 25 claims, strongest to weakest
Longer bars mean a stronger pattern, whichever side they fall on. Only the ones marked held survived the full check.
What held up
Are the ZIPs that appreciated most still appreciating?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up less than once in 100,000 tries.
very strong link · r = 0.841 · 28 ZIP codes
Does yield fall as prices rise, as investment theory expects?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up less than once in 100,000 tries.
strong link · r = -0.793 · 28 ZIP codes
Do owners live in the newer housing and renters in the older?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up about once in every 100,000 tries.
strong link · r = 0.739 · 28 ZIP codes
Are the ZIPs that rose over three years still rising this year?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up about once in every 5,000 tries.
strong link · r = 0.645 · 28 ZIP codes
Do LLCs concentrate in older or newer housing stock?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up about once in every 1,700 tries.
strong link · r = -0.609 · 28 ZIP codes
Is rent accelerating in the most owner-occupied ZIPs?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up about once in every 130 tries.
moderate link · r = -0.495 · 28 ZIP codes
Have rent and home values moved together over three years?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up about once in every 80 tries.
moderate link · r = 0.468 · 28 ZIP codes
Is rent accelerating where LLC ownership is highest?
If nothing were really going on, a pattern this strong would turn up about once in every 70 tries.
moderate link · r = 0.461 · 28 ZIP codes
What did not
No relationship was found for any of these, though several get repeated confidently around Denver. With 28 ZIP codes a small effect could still hide, so none of these is called false, only unproven.
- Has older or newer housing appreciated faster?coin-flip odds
- Has rent risen faster where owners live in their homes?coin-flip odds
- Do LLCs cluster where the rent-to-price yield is highest?coin-flip odds
- Has rent risen faster where LLCs own more of the housing?coin-flip odds
- Does newer housing rent for more?coin-flip odds
- Are LLC purchases concentrated at the cheap end of the market?coin-flip odds
- Is yield lower where owner-occupancy is higher?coin-flip odds
- Do LLCs concentrate in the expensive ZIPs or the cheap ones?coin-flip odds
- Is owner-occupancy just a proxy for how expensive a ZIP is?coin-flip odds
And 6 more.
Ownership from City and County of Denver assessor and address records. Rent and value from Zillow Research public data. The questions were written before testing and re-run unchanged; because 25 were asked at once, the results are corrected for false discovery, a harder bar than the usual one. These are correlations, not causes. Updated August 2026.
Wondering what this means for your block?
I can pull the ownership picture for your street and tell you what it does and does not say about your home's value.
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