The Denver Post just released this Neighborhood by Neighborhood Report on Metro Denver Real Estate. You can check out your neighborhood for average price, price change, average discount, number of days on the market, percent of foreclosure and short sales. Thanks to George Lupiba Jr. from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage for sending EskyKnows the link.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! Get off the fence. Quit waiting. I’ve been telling you that the Denver area real estate market is not the doom and gloom market the press is bellowing about. The “cranes” are everywhere and we are not talking birds.  Enterprise and commerce create jobs. Big box developments featuring top name tenants are quickly replacing old style shopping centers or once vacant acreage.

Denver Colorado ranks as the 6th BEST residential real estate market (single family homes) according to the Standard and Poor’s Cas-Shiller Home Price idices released data for February 2008. Rankings for the 20-city composite recorded an annual decline of 12.7% while Denver recorded an annual decline of only 5.5%.

Las Vegas, again the weakest market posting a 22.8% decline followed by Miami with a 21.7% decline. San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles were the worst performers in the west!

Charlotte with a 1.5% increase in home prices was followed by Portland Oregon and Seattle, leading the composite as best markets.

More good news. Read the rest of this entry »

The Universtiy of Denver Real Estate Chair, the MLS statistics continue to reinforce the facts that  the real estate markets in Denver and the surrounding areas are not in the same miserable condition as most of the rest of the United States.

Here is a link to an report from the local CBS4 affiliate in Denver. READ ON it’s GOOD FOR YOU! http://cbs4denver.com/seenon/denver.housing.market.2.685642.html

I say an article in the NY Times last Sunday that answered the question but was not area specific so I asked my insurance guru buddy Theresa Byrnes the question. Here is her reply:

“ Yes, I read the same article and yes this is true.
The reason it is more expensive is because first of all, most insurance companies (Farmers included) will NOT write vacant homes.  We have done this, but they can not be vacant for more than 90 days and in the market today it can be tough to flip these houses.  So….then you are dealing with “specialty dwelling” coverage which I can write though Foremost (Farmers affiliate)…however…the premium is higher.
 
The reason for this is because vacant homes are risky.  Vandalism is very high and water damage also is very high. When pipes break no one is there to know about it so the water runs for days causing catastrophic damage to the property. 
 
I get phone calls all the time from Realtors and attorneys or ask me to help them with this because foreclosed properties can’t get insured because the owner left and cancelled the insurance policies, and now it is vacant.  Because of all the ridiculous negative media about the housing market….it’s raising more concern….
As far as how much this can effect your premium? It can double. I have been writing Foremost policies more now than ever because of the exact thing the paper wrote about. So….for once, the paper is right.
 
I hope this answers your question and prevents any problems in the future.”

Theres Byrnes Farmers Insurance

The ANSWERS ARE RIGHT HERE!

I’ve been asking you to quit reading and watching the national gloom and doom real estate pornography and pay attention to our market facts, here in the 6 county metro Denver area.

Now I am telling you it’s time to thow you away your newspapers and turn off the news and just give your attention to ESKYKNOWS DENVER. I’ll give you a quick example…

Last week the local daily newspaper here in Denver properly reported the upswing in our Denver market based on February sales statistics from the keeper of real estate stats, Metrolist our multiple listing service. More homes were sold this February in the Denver area than in 2007 and fewer homes were available here in February 2008.  The article was less than 2 column inches in size, in the lower left of the page, the least read newspaper position.

Just a day later, a very large well placed, top of the page article proclaimed “February Homes More Doom and Gloom”. This was an article referring to the worst real estate markets in the U.S.! No mention of Denver!

In the upper right corner of this blog site is a Questions and Answers bar.  See it?

 Just point and click on the Questions and Answers bar and a question box will open. Send me questions or concerns and I’ll answer you!

TELL YOU FAMILY, FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS WHERE TO GO…. Thanks for not keeping us a secret!

Get the FACTS, just the FACTS here at ESKYKNOWS DENVER.

   You’re from Colorado if…

You’ll eat ice cream in the winter.

When the weather report says it’s going to be 65 degrees, you shave your
legs and wear a skirt.

It snows 5 inches and you don’t expect school to be cancelled.

You’ll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.

You have no accent at all, but can hear other people’s. And then you
make fun of them.

‘Humid’ is over 25%.

Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the
mountains.

You say ‘the interstate’ and everybody knows which one.

You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.

You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat.

You know what the Continental Divide is.

You don’t think Coors beer is that big a deal.

You went to Casa Bonita as a kid.

You’ve gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such
activities. Read the rest of this entry »

  Lawrence Yun - NAR Chief Economist foresees Denver’s Housing Turnaround

Denver’s housing market is not as bad off as most of the rest of the country is what I believe and have been reporting. The same will hold true for 2008. We’ll see the Denver markets improve faster than most. Prices will remain stable, no up’s or downs.

On Wednesday, Lawrence Yun, chief economist and senior vice president of the National Association of Realtors presented his 2008 real estate forecast to the Jeffco Board of Realtors in Lakewood Colorado. “All markets are local and the bleak national market conditions do not represent what is happening in the Denver area. The one thing that may be holding back your market is buyer pessimism. You have very strong affordability” Yun said. 

“Interest rates are basically at a 45 year low” and he reminded us that buyers have a bad attitude based on false beliefs fueled by the press and that the mistakes of Wall Street are in the past, not related to home buying now or in the future.

 Mr. Yun noted that if there is a recession, interest rates will go even lower making Denver housing even more attractive. Denver would weather a recession better than the country as a whole because of the educated work force here.Yun also noted however that the high number of foreclosures  will continue this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good golly, I just post about Cherry Creek arising from a former garbage dump and the gossip in the press is that BritneySpears is buying in Cherry Creek. Best hope for everyone’s sake, that is a rumor!

The 57 acre Denver garbage dump is now the Cherry Creek Mall. Think about that!

Denver Colorado’s first “suburban” shopping center was originally conceived around the year 1925 by architect Temple Buell to answer land use problems for the “sprawl” of suburban Denver. Formal plans for the CHERRY CREEK SHOPPING CENTER were announced in 1946. In 1950, ground was broken.The completed shopping center opened in 1953.

In 1988, a major mall expansion began and the all-new, enclosed, 1.2 million square foot mall was erected in their place. CHERRY CREEK MALL, opened in August 1990, and has become the most upscale shopping center in Metropolitan Denver and one of the most successful in the nation.

In 1968 W.C. Muchow, famed Denver architect designed and built one of Cherry Creeks first upscale residential “town homes.” If you know Cherry Creek, you know what’s happened since. Now the primest of residential real estate complimented by the “Mall,” dining and shopping in Cherry Creek North has caught of the eye of many as place to call “my second or third home.” Read the rest of this entry »

The press and news reports are screaming “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” about the real estate market.  The only thing falling are interest rates!

Mortgage interest rates, reported by our beloved Freddie Mac fell to the lowest level in  a month, matching rates from more than a year past! Sure this could give investors reason to worry about about a possible ressession, but let’s face it money investors worry about everything!

30 year fixed rate mortgages averaged 6.07% The Adjustable Rate Mortagage (ARM’s) were unchanged and remain at 5.9%.

Yes, most neighborhoods in the Denver area real estate markets have suffered with declineing prices and slowed activity. The facts remain that homes are selling and there are many homeowners who need to sell. The banks are loosening up and understand they MUST sell to reduce their number of REO’s (real estate owned) as they anticipate the next wave of foreclosures.

Buyers,  sitting on the bench waiting to get in the game should seriously think about getting in shape, ready to buy in this amazing real estate market place.  Getting in shape?  Yep, get ready to buy, prepare yourself for the marketplace in order to optimize you ability to purchase.

So what to do to get in shape: First talk to a great lender with a long track record. Stay away from the fast talkers and promises of way below market interest rates. Then, think about your “wish list.”  Your written wish list is a must. Write it down then prioritize it. Include everything you want to find in your new home, from number of bedrooms, bathrooms, lot size, architecture, square footage to neighborhood schools, room sizes and everything else you can think of. Now reorder the list from “must have” to “really want” to “it would be nice to have.” Prioritizing will really make you think about the property so that when you begin your property search you will have a heighten understanding of what is important to you. Read the rest of this entry »