Seven Tips To Sell Your Home Right Now
If you find that you must sell now and really want to get it done, consider acting like a salesperson and take away the emotional attachment to the home you want to sell. It doesn’t help you to have an emotional attachment to one of the largest financial interests you’ll ever have. Treat the process like a business.
Here are seven tips to consider when you’re ready to sell: Read more
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac May Get Support From Feds
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors met yesterday in Washington and agreed to let the New York Fed have final authority to lend to Fannie and Freddie if it proved necessary. Since the Bear Stearns deal with J.P. Morgan gave many people the idea that government-engineered bailouts are the order of the day, this has some folks paying close attention.
Current news this A.M. from several sources seems to indicate that this is good news for a troubled national economy as both the national real estate market and wall street are feeling major shake-ups lately. Read more
ConocoPhillips Plans May Improve Economy
The plans for ConocoPhillips to redevelop the former Sun Microsystems / Storage Tek campus appear to already be having some positive effects on the local economy. Many of you that I’ve been talking with recently have said that you’ve either read something, or have first hand knowledge of how the ConocoPhillips plans may affect your future.
The commercial marketplace, in the vicinity of the ConocoPhillips campus, is sometimes referred to by the Denver community as Read more
Mortage Rates Up Slightly, Boulder Real Estate Still Okay
If you think that Boulder is a pretty high-priced market and for some, (it’s downright unaffordable), and you are interested and able to spend that kind of money, this may be a good time to buy. With rates up slightly this week, they’re still lower than a year ago and Boulder real estate prices are holding steadily flat versus summer 2007.
Freddie Mac’s vice president and chief economist reported this week that mortgage rates are up slightly to an average of 6.45% for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage when compared to rates one week ago. You might already know that this is still lower than a year ago when rates averaged 6.67%. Read more
City Of Boulder Affordable Housing Program Changes?
The City of Boulder Affordable Housing Program may present some changes for developers soon. There’s a chance that the city will increase the number of required units sold as part of the City of Boulder Affordable Housing Program instead of allowing developers to pay cash-in-lieu fees.
The city seems to be concerned both about the funding of the program and also the distribution and availability of homes within the program. This could affect developers intending to build boulder condos and projects like The Boulder Peloton. Read more
Boulder Real Estate May Stats Update
Our statistics for sold Boulder real estate as of June 2, 2008 need to be updated now that there’s been some time for all the data to get in. I previously noted that records showed 55 homes were sold in May this year. The latest numbers show that a total of 78 homes were sold in May at an average price of $672,322, and the average days on market for those was 110 days.
When compared with May 2007, we show that 115 homes were sold at an average price of $671,239 and the average days on the market last May was 79. That’s a pretty flat market if we compare these two months.
Here’s some additional quarterly data that might be interesting to those of you who like numbers. Read more
Builders Facing More Challenge Selling New Homes
Builders across the nation are once again using whatever tactics they can to sell houses. Sure, lowering prices has been one method. I’ve seen various examples, such as a local builder taking about $20,000 off the price of a condo without any hesitation. Even in the Boulder real estate market, and certainly to a greater extent in the surrounding communities. Did you read my post about discounts at the Boulder condos at The Peloton?
In the one particular case referenced above, the condo was two weeks away from its scheduled close date, (the date the papers get signed and the new owner takes possession) but the buyer backed out. I showed this community to one of my buyer clients, and it was a great fit. The condo met the needs and wants of my buyer, and the clincher was that the builder was happy to offer a price reduction equal to the on-paper cost of all the upgrades the previous buyer had optioned into the property. Read more
Chanin Dev Buying Boulder Mobile Home Park
Recent news is that the mobile home park, on land sometimes referred to as The Orchard Grove, is under contract to sell to local developer Chanin Development. The mobile home park covers about 30 acres at the northeast corner of Valmont and 30th street. It currently has about 215 units on the property and is managed by Orchard Court Development Co.
Orchard Grove includes a complex and varied mix of residents that include people from all walks of life. Some residents go back a couple generations. and it appears to be a very tight knit, and vibrant community.
While Jim Chanin, president of Chanin Development, confirmed to local media that his company plans to purchase the property, he declined to release any details and simply stated that Chanin Development is buying a fully occupied mobile home park. Read more
Boulder Real Estate And Lending Market
Just a short note to share with you some comments from Nora Ziel at Cherry Creek Mortgage. She and I look at what’s going on in the market that might affect Boulder real estate and lending each week. This is a highlight of what we’re seeing happening. Read more
Countrywide Real Estate Shenanigans?
Looks like Countrywide Financial Corp. proposed to settle on accusations that it fabricated evidence.
The supposed evidence was used in an attempt to foreclose on a home and this case went to a bankruptcy court. The judge listening to the bankruptcy case has apparently rejected Countrywide’s plan to settle the suit with the homeowner from the Pittsburgh area. Read more
Even Boulder Real Estate Buyers Trending Towards Condos
While the local market remains strong for Boulder real estate sales, the condo market is heating up as both local and national trends move towards buyers focusing on condos.
Even though some think that it’s been time to circle the wagons, the Boulder, CO real estate market is very strong and with limited space for new development, the Boulder condo market has been heating up. Projects such as The Peloton, The Walnut Read more
Where’s Your Home Equity Line?
So you worked hard to secure a home equity line, you always pay both your primary loan and the equity line payments on time, and yet the bank just let you know that you have been cut off.
Or worse, they didn’t even tell you. Rather, you tried to use some money from your equity line with the Visa card attached to it and it was a no go. You think the bank cares Read more
Will ConocoPhillips Create A Louisville Boom?
The recent purchase of the old Storage Tek / Sun Microsystems campus by ConocoPhillips may seem like old news to some of us. However, in and around town, the people I talk to continue to bring it up. There’s both skepticism and optimism.
Some of you have told me that you think that the impact is insignificant, but the majority sentiment seems to be that we’re on the side of optimism on this matter. The local papers have given us Read more
Boulder Realtor Joins Real Estate Of The Rockies
As of last Friday, this Boulder Realtor is now with a new real estate brokerage: Real Estate of the Rockies. It’s an exciting change as I’ll now have more opportunity to be the best Boulder Realtor that I can be for you. Nope, I’m not saying I’m the best Boulder Realtor for ‘everyone‘… but maybe… perhaps, for you!
Here’s the lowdown on what’s been going on and why the change.
I had a great run with my former brokerage and when I learned that Real Estate of the Rockies was planning to open a Boulder real estate office, I thought it made sense to investigate new opportunities. As it turns out, Read more
Boulder City Council Puts Home Size Regs On Hold
The Boulder City Council decided to listen to public sentiment and also to a recommendation from the Boulder Planning Board. The temporary ordinance limiting house sizes is on hold as of late Tuesday night.
In a decision made after 10:00 pm on the 8th, the City Council unanimously voted not to hear a first reading of an interim ordinance on the matter. The Council decided instead to hold a discussion next week at the public meeting to review the options for putting together such an ordinance. Read more
Boulder Real Estate Home Size Limits
Homes in the Boulder real estate market have been in jeopardy of being tightly restricted in recent months as the city council considers legislation to limit the size of a home should you choose to remodel or build new.
Boulder City Council recently backed away from an emergency action to limit home expansions at its meeting on March 18. In an email posted on March 17 councilor Macon Cowles proposed a severe, city-wide .35 floor area ratio (FAR). Read more
ConocoPhillips Plans For StorageTek Site
There’s ongoing speculation about how the purchase of the former StorageTek site in Louisville by ConocoPhillips will impact the local economy. Some have said that it will take up to a year to see any real impact on the area.
You might remember the significant impact that Sun Microsystems and Level 3 Communications had on the Superior / Louisville / Broomfield local marketplace. There’s lots of talk that a similar impact is poised to hit us.
I’ve heard a few people complain Read more
Adverse Possession Rules For Boulder Real Estate To Change
Due to all the controversy and attention over the recent rift between local landowners in Boulder we’re going to see some changes in the rules regarding adverse possession. The Boulder real estate market may be better off as a result.
You might remember the recent case of our neighbors in south Boulder over a land squabble, where some folks decided to get a friendly district court judge involved and implement the rules of adverse possession to grab up some land from their next-door neighbors. It was headline stuff for a while locally. Read more
Banks Respond To Pressures To Go Green
These days some of the largest banks in the world have warmed to the issue of climate risk by focusing on research looking at the impact of global warming. Focus on investments, cutting their own greenhouse emissions and funding clean-energy projects are all important these days.
Unfortunately only a few of the world’s 40 largest banks are integrating climate risks into their lending practices and targeting reduced greenhouse-gas emissions in their lending portfolios. Read more
Lenders Rethinking Home-Equity Loans
Since delinquencies are on the rise in some markets, it looks like some companies are just walking away instead of foreclosing and then other lenders are getting stingy with borrowers.
This tightening bind between home-equity lenders and borrowers is coming from a combination of falling home prices and rising delinquencies however, since we’re not experiencing falling prices in the Boulder real estate market, take some of this news with a grain of salt. Read more
Boulder Real Estate Didn’t Drive Sub-Prime Meltdown
Looking back at 2007, it seems clear to me that the sub-prime meltdown wasn’t connected to the Boulder real estate market.
However, even nationally, I’d say that the subprime meltdown was not so much a real estate driven crisis as much as a financial and structural crisis in the banking world.
Since the banks could easily sell off loans, Read more
Boulder Real Estate Rental Market Tightens
As the price of Boulder real estate continues to appreciate and the mortgage industry changes make it harder to buy entry level homes, Boulder is seeing a tightening rental market.
While this is good for landlord property owners, it’s making it a little tougher for renters. All the more reason to be careful with your credit and work hard to save a little money. Those that have even modest down payments and good credit can become buyers instead of renters.
Boulder has seen a relatively soft rental market in recent years. Read more
Boulder County Rejects Current House Size Plan
The Boulder County Planning Commission has spent over a year working on a house-size plan but we’re still waiting on the final outcome.
Wednesday, the commission sent a plan to county commissioners but it neglected to include any hard data on size restrictions. Instead, it said that the county should pursue a plan to restrict large houses and preserve small houses but that they weren’t ready approve the current draft. Read more
How Does Stimulus Bill Affect Boulder Real Estate Market?
The recently passed economic stimulus package may not be as much of a benefit to the Boulder real estate market as we had hoped.
Where we once hoped that FHA loan limits would increase by almost 125% and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would up the thresholds similarly for conventional loans to keep buyers out of ‘jumbo’ territory; it didn’t work out that way. Read more
Bernanke Does It Again
from online sources minutes ago….
””Using words like “sluggish” and “deteriorated,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a starkly pessimistic assessment of the nation’s economy on Thursday and signaled that the Fed will cut interest rate cuts further if needed to combat the adverse effects of a prolonged housing slump and a severe credit crisis.””’
posted from my treo 755 via yahoo news…
Beazer Homes Bucks Homebuilder Trend
The Atlanta-based homebuilder, Beazer Homes, is managing to perform well despite the national news that the housing industry is causing major grief for new home construction.
While Beazer has projects in the Denver Metro area, the company actually also builds homes in 21 states across the U.S. Maybe it’s this diversity that helps Beazer or maybe it’s their decision to get out of the mortgage-origination business. Read more
Stimulus Plan Helps Boulder Real Estate Market
The biggest winners will potentially be those already invested in the Boulder real estate market.
This comes from part of the new economic stimulus plan passed by congress this week and waiting President Bush’s signature. The part of the stimulus plan that should be interesting to Boulder real estate investors is the portion that increases loan limits on both FHA loans and Jumbo loans.
As I outlined earlier in a post on the proposed stimulus plan, the interest-rate gap between “jumbo” loans Read more
Senate Approves Economic Stimulus Plan
The U.S. Senate approved a $168 billion economic stimulus plan this afternoon.
Now the vote goes back to the House of Representatives for final approval this evening so it can be back on President Bush’s desk for his signature.
The Senate Democrats and Republicans had difficulty getting their heads together on exactly what the package would include and who would benefit. In the end, the compromise included comments Read more
Easier Terms For Subprime Borrowers
During the second half of last year, over 370,000 homeowners with sub-prime mortgage loans managed to negotiate easier terms with their lender.
It’s unknown how many of those are in the Boulder real estate market but I know that while Boulder county has its fair share of homeowners in trouble, counties like Adams, Weld and Larimer are really hit hard in this period of adjustment.
One of the typical elements of the new terms were Read more
REIT Investors Nervous?
One of the big news items I read recently talks about a company called General Growth Properties. They’re a Chicago-based mall developer. The focus is on comments in one of their recent ‘risk factor’ disclosures.
Here’s how it read: “Our substantial indebtedness could adversely affect our financial health and operating flexibility”.
While a lot of investors cavalierly disregard such comments Read more
House Passes Higher Loan Limits
I have just received word from Nora Ziel at Cherry Creek Mortgage that the House today passed higher GSE and FHA loan limits.
The provision raises the loan limits for FHA, Fannie and Freddie to $729,500 until Dec, 31 2008. Too bad this isn’t permanent.
Next steps: the Senate is expected to act next week.
However, Read more
Media To Blame for Housing Market Condition?
There’s an interesting thing happening again in the Boulder real estate market community. The journalists have it all wrong… perhaps. David Clucas at the BCBR admits it’s all his fault that the housing market is having a down-turn. I’m glad that someone in the media stepped up and took responsibility for this supposed mess!
While I appreciate his somewhat tongue-in-cheek comments as he tries to turn the perspective around, he’s perhaps missing one critical piece on this issue. The local housing market is not in a down-turn. Recent local Boulder real estate statistics show that Boulder real estate prices appreciated just a touch over Read more
Will Economic Stimulus Package Help Boulder Real Estate?
Top lawmakers unveiled an economic stimulus package and vowed to bring a vote at “the earliest date.” Bush hailed the deal as a temporary set of incentives that will boost the economy. The package would give most tax filers refunds of $600 to $1,200. It also would boost caps on Fannie and Freddie conforming loans in high-cost areas.
— According to the Wall Street Journal as of about 5:50pm EST
It’s the last part of that I want you to pay attention to. The idea that the economic stimulus package being negotiated by House Democrats and the Treasury Department may boost caps on FHA loan limits is a really big deal for Boulder real estate. With an average local median price in the Boulder real estate market of almost Read more
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If you're thinking about buying or selling Boulder real estate or you just want more information, about relocating to the Boulder area call me today!
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