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Denver’s housing market tops Case-Shiller

"Denver performed the best of the 20 major metropolitan housing market tracked in the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report released today."

See the whole article by John Rebchook.

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Do you notice the same thing I do when I scan these headlines from a new website dedicated to the real estate market in Denver?  Three respected Colorado companies (a title company, a real estate legal firm, and a lender) tapped former Rocky Mountain News writer John Rebchook to report on the local real estate market.  These are just a few of Rebchook's recent headlines:

Denver-area foreclosure filings rise, sales drop, in October
Experts worry another wave of foreclosures will hit Colorado
Foreclosure filings rise in Colorado
Denver-area apartment permits down 85 percent
Housing slowdown not evenly distributed in Denver area
Are we at the bottom yet? 
Denver-area home permits lowest on record 
Denver bucks housing trend

What I notice is a mixture of both good and bad news.  This is consistent with what I hear from other sources as well.  Some aspects of the real estate market are positive, while others are negative.  Some commentators are optimistic, others pessimistic.

In a way that adds up to good news.  Everyone knows the market has not turned around and headed up in a sharp recovery.  Yet, the mixture of some good news and some bad news says to me that we have hit bottom, or are at least close to it.

Turn-arounds don't happen overnight.  They have to flatten out before they can go up; and the plateau is usually a series of smaller ups and downs.  That is, some positive and some negative.  When the time comes that the news is all positive, it will be too late to get the best bargains.

So, if you have been thinking about buying a home, isn't now a good time to see what is available?  Call me.  I'd love to hear what you think.  303-284-3609.

Check out this article via my other blog on www.DenverSeniorsHousing.com

Change or die? 10,000 steps a day could change your health forever

http://www.guidestoneinsurance.org/AboutUs/Articles/10000steps.aspx

Fear of death is a powerful, but often only temporary, motivator. When the swine flu frenzy subsides, people will go back to their normal behavior. That includes going to work sick and forgetting about all the hand-washing — even though the threat of getting sick with many diseases still exists.

Doctors have observed the same pattern in many post-heart attack patients. Studies show that within a few months as many as 80%¹ of patients go back to the same behaviors that landed them in the hospital.

This suggests that doctors have little success scaring patients into changing destructive behaviors. Permanent behavior change comes from a change in perspective, not fear.

Live sooner
Dr. Dean Ornish² is an expert in changing at-risk patient behavior. His groundbreaking 1993 study revealed two factors in successful behavior change: (1) focusing on positive, immediate results rather than the avoidance of negative consequences; (2) fostering willingness to adopt immediate, radical change.

Keeping up with the economic news is almost impossible, since there are so many different factors to consider. Many of us are concerned primarily with the housing market, but that can’t be considered alone. To get the big picture, I like to go to the experts. Today I went to hear an economic forecast lecture by Patti Silverstein. She is the economist for the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Click here for her PowerPoint presentation, and it might be some help. In a couple of days, I should be able to provide a link to today’s lecture which was videotaped. For now, these insights from her lecture might help you understand the PowerPoint presentation:

· The Colorado recession will be shorter and shallower than the overall U.S. recession.

· There appears to be a fundamental structural change in the Colorado economy: in 69 years there have only been 7 years of employment decline. Three of those years are in this decade.

· Metro Denver’s population will remain essentially unchanged for 2009

· A major factor in driving this recession is that the Consumer Confidence Index has dropped precipitously since November. Consumers are therefore holding on to their money; and when they do spend, they are spending more carefully. This has affected retail sales; and retail vacancy rates are rising as more stores close.

· The housing boom of 2004-2005 was driven by low interest rates and exotic loans—the culprit in the foreclosures of the past 4 years. I think I heard her say that previously only 6% of loans were “subprime” loans. In 2004-2005 40% of loans were subprime.

· The relative stability of home prices in Colorado means we won’t do as badly as elsewhere. See S&P: Denver had smallest 2008 home-price decline of 20 U.S. cities

· Foreclosures are still high, but are declining (and much better than some other places). See Colorado foreclosures fall in 2008 for 1st time in years for more on this.

· The first half of 2009 will still be difficult, but things should improve in the 2^nd half of the year.

Every now and then an article shows up that makes a fuzzy picture clear. A lot of those come from Michael Barone. His article, Foreclosures Are a Regional, Not a National Problem--Half Are in Four States, plainly shows that the foreclosure situation in Colorado is pretty good by comparison. It gives hope that our housing market will rebound long before some other states.

Colorado’s foreclosure rate is just under the national average of 11 per 5,000 housing units. Ours is 10 per 5,000. Compare that with:

    Nevada 66 per 5,000 housing units

    California 29 per 5,000 housing units

    Arizona 27 per 5,000 housing units

    Florida 23 per 5,000 housing units

In other words, 53 percent of the nation's foreclosures took place in states with 21 percent of the nation's population. It will take the market a lot longer to rebound there than in Colorado. We don’t have a many foreclosed homes waiting to be sold, so a normal homeowner who wants to sell will have a better chance to sell than in those high foreclosure states.

Today I spent 3 hours in a class taught by an attorney going through the newly revised real estate purchase contract.  It's something I've had to do just about every year for the past couple of decades.

The 2009 contract is eleven letter-size pages.  The first Colorado purchase contract I signed (in 1978) was one legal-size page.

The difference in the size of the contracts is lawsuits--everything that has been added in the past 30 years is the result of lawsuits.  The Colorado Real Estate Commission (CREC) is charged with protecting consumers: making the playing field as close to level for both buyer and seller; and protecting both buyer and seller in their relationships with brokers and other entities involved in a real estate transaction.

In Colorado, a real estate broker is given permission by the Colorado Supreme Court to, in essence, practice law without a license.  Among other restrictions, we must use "standard forms": that is, contract forms prepared by the CREC. 

Those forms are regularly revised, usually by adding language to cover some new problem uncovered in a lawsuit between buyer and seller or consumer and broker.  That's how the contract grew to eleven pages.

Whenever I go to one of these classes, I wonder why anyone who only buys or sells a home every 5-10 years would not want an agent representing them. If, after 23 years in the business, I need a class to make sure I understand how to keep my clients out of a courtroom, how can inexperienced and untrained consumers know enough to protect themselves?

It's serious enough when buying a resale home. The question gets more serious when someone wants to buy a new home from a builder.  Builders don't have to use the CREC-approved forms.  Their attorneys prepare their contracts, primarily to protect the builder. 

So, whether you are thinking about buying a resale home or a new one from a builder, it's smart to ask a Realtor to be your agent--to represent you in the transaction.  Why go it alone when there is so much at stake?

To learn more, call me at 303-284-3609 or email me at rudyantle@msn.com.

Metro housing holding its value --New report could spur investment in local real estate

(This article by John Rebchook in the 1/15/09 edition of The Rocky Mountain News)

Home prices in the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area have less than a 1 percent chance of declining in value during the next two years, according to a national report released Wednesday.

The report by PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. could help accelerate an expected surge of real estate investments by savvy buyers looking for bargains, said one local expert. 

[Click on this link to read the entire article]

Related Links

• LINK: PMI report on future home price declines
  (This report dramatically shows the good situation Denver is in compared to many other cities’ risk of decline in housing values: # 41 in a list of top 50 Metropolitan Statistical Areas.)
• Foreclosures in metro Denver decline 11.8 percent

A similar article was published yesterday:

Denver Business Journal--Report: Denver home prices likely to be stable through mid-2010

Have you noticed the recent trend? There is more good news about Denver area real estate than bad news.

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Colorado Real Estate Commission's top 10 points:

TOP TEN POINTS

1. The best time to refinance is when there is an overall tangible net benefit to the borrower from refinancing. That simply means that the best time is when the benefits to refinancing outweigh the costs. Is it in your best interest?

See all 10 points: click here.