In the first two months of the year, developers pulled 284 permits for apartment units, 4.79% more than the 271 in 2004. There were 144 permits issued in Adams County and 140 permits issued in Denver.

"I'm not worried about the apartment market," high-profile economist Tucker Hart Adams tells GlobeSt.com. "They're starting from such a low base, that it doesn't really make a difference if they add a few units here and there." Adams says she is much more concerned about potential overbuilding of the single-family market, which is up 29.66% from the first two months of 2004.

However, Roger Reinhardt, executive vice president of the Denver HBA, says that homebuilders have been very responsible, building only to meet demand. He says if the housing market were overbuilt, there would be a much larger supply of unsold homes. And unlike other parts of the country, Reinhardt says he doesn't think there has been much speculation by investors to buy single-family home units as investments in recent years, because Denver has not shown the kind of heady appreciation of home prices on the East and West Coasts. Because home prices in Denver, on average, have been only rising slightly above the rate of inflation in recent years, Denver also is much less likely to see the housing market bubble to burst than other parts of the country, he says.