Commercial real estate brokers in Denver increasingly are following the residential sales market to gauge the overall economy, hence the outlook for the office, industrial and retail markets.

The median price of a condo was $143,552 in November, just a slight shift upward from $143,250 a year ago. So far this year, 11,058 condos have sold in comparison to 33,295 single-family homes.

"We have been predicting a greater market share for townhome/condominiums, because prices of single family homes have outstripped some buying families," McGuire tells GlobeSt.com. "Even though the number of total sales are about the same through November, attached housing accounts for 556 more units than last year and we have already set a dollar-volume record of just $1.8 billion. Not bad for a 'collapsing market.'" The total dollar volume of all housing sales through November equals $10.3 billion, compared to the all-time record of $10.8 billion in all of last year.