Metro Denver not only leads the nation’s major metro areas for home price appreciation this year, but it is also running shoulder to shoulder with several smaller cities.

The Denver-Aurora area ranked seventh out of 178 cities tracked for the gain in the median price of a home sold between the first quarters of 2015 and 2014, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The big difference is that Denver homes started at a much more expensive price, making its housing market similar to a hefty offensive lineman who can keep pace with wide receivers in the 40-yard dash.

The median price of a home sold in the Denver-Aurora area rose 17.2 percent, to $338,100 in the first quarter of 2015 from $288,400 in the first quarter of 2014.

Nationally, median sales prices appreciated 7.4 percent in the same period to $205,200, according to the National Association of Realtors report.

The median home sold price reflects both the increase in each individual home sold, but also the mix of homes sold in a given market.

Metro Denver is not only seeing lower-cost properties bid up, but also seeing the sale of more costly properties.

“What we are seeing is a shift in the mix of homes for sale,” explained Anthony Rael, chairman of the market trends committee with the Denver Metro Association of Realtors, noting one downtown condo sold for $4.5 million last month.

Single-family home sales, in number, are up only 2 percent year-to-date compared with last year. But the dollar volume of those home sales in metro Denver is up 15 percent, said Rael.

What makes Denver’s ranking stand out is that the six other cities with faster appreciation had much lower home prices. As a group, their median sold price averaged $157,600 versus Denver’s $338,100.

Sherman, Texas, led the country with a 33.4 percent gain in the median sold price in the first quarter, rising to $123,400 from $92,500. Next was Port St. Lucie, Fla., where the median home sold price went to $172,000 from $139,900, up 22.9 percent.

Four other cities had gains close to Denver, including South Bend, Ind., up 19.1 percent; Decatur, Ill., up 18.1 percent; Charlotte, N.C., up 17.7 percent; and Reno, Nev., up 17.6 percent.

Metro Denver’s median home sold price is now about 65 percent more expensive than the national average, but residents have only a median household income that is 18 percent higher to cover those heftier home payments, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The list of areas tracked also included El Paso County, where home sold prices were up 9.4 percent to $220,100, and Boulder County, where that figure rose 5.6 percent to $442,200.

Metro Denver ranked No. 1 for home price appreciation among 20 large metros in February, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index.

Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/aldosvaldi

Updated on May 13, 2015 at 3:05 p.m.: This story has been edited to clarify that the National Association of Realtors figures reported for the Colorado Springs and Boulder metropolitan statistical areas reflect sales in all of El Paso and Boulder counties, but not the cities of Colorado Springs and Boulder individually.