Americans are starting to feel better about the economy.
The Conference Board’s April report on consumer confidence surged to a reading of 39.2, up 46% from the reading of 26.9 in March. The monthly gain was the fourth-biggest in the 32-year history of the survey. Economists had expected only a slight improvement to a reading of 28.8.
The survey’s expectations index surged to 49.5 in April from 30.2 in March, which was the biggest increase since the fall of Baghdad in the spring of 2003.
“Consumers believe the economy is nearing a bottom,” Lynn Franco, the director of the Conference Board’s consumer research center, said in a statement. Still, the index “remains well below levels associated with strong economic growth.”
February’s consumer confidence reading was the second-lowest on record, following January’s miserable reading of 25.3, which was the worst on record.
A separate report on home prices also showed some improvement. Or at least, the bad news isn’t getting any worse.
Home prices fell 2.2% in February, according to the Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major metropolitan cities. The decline was an improvement from the 2.8% drop in January. Denver CO real estate saw a smaller drop of only 1.7% month over month and a decline of 5.7% annually, trailing only Dallas TX real estate which only saw an annual drop of 4.5%.
On a year-over-year basis, prices fell 18.6%, also a slight improvement from the 19% decline for the 12 months ending in January.
But February’s annual decline was the first in 16 months that was not a record low. Homebuilding stocks were mixed on the news.
On Wednesday, investors will get their first glimpse at how gross domestic product fared in the first quarter. Economists expect GDP to have contracted at a 4.9% annualized rate, which would be an improvement from the negative 6.3% rate seen in the fourth quarter.

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For the first time in almost 25 years, the Denver Nuggets are up 2-0 in the first round of the playoffs and it’s damn exciting. Yeah, we’ve been to the playoffs before, actually one of only 3 teams to make it every year for the last six. But we have never made it out of the first round. Sure, it’s no guarantee now either, but after to kick butt wins, it’s exciting. And I even got to hang with Chris Paul last Saturday night. I was at a wedding in Cherry Creek and the Hornets were staying at the JW Marriot, one of the finest hotels for Denver real estate. It just so happens that Chris and the bride’s sister swapped phone numbers that night too. HA! That’s no joke either…as I know that have been talking to each other. Regardless, Chauncey has been killing it for the Nuggets. I even watched a movie in his former home one time. When he lived her previously, he owned a home over off of Parker and Florida, and the people that bought that piece of Denver CO real estate we actually friends of my girlfriend at the time. Pretty cool stuff, I know! Have a great weekend.

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The housing market is still struggling, but low mortgage rates and other incentives prompted first-time buyers to start buying in March, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.

Existing-home sales fell of 3% to an annual rate of 4.57 million in March, which was a bigger drop than expected, but first-time buyers made up 53% of the sales.

The national median existing-home price was $175,200 in March, up 4.2% from $168,200 in February, but down more than 12% from March 2008, when it was $200,100.

Still, at least one expert found the report encouraging.

“This fits with an idea of stabilization of housing demand,” Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Holdings, told Bloomberg News. “We’ve seen housing affordability go up across the country. The bad news has been diminishing.”

And “the worst may be over” in parts of the West, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in the report. Sales have doubled in parts of California and in Las Vegas, areas of the country that have suffered the most during the housing crunch.

If you’re looking to purchase Denver CO real estate, call ReLogic today!

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Wow, I’m sure a lot of us still remember it as it was yesterday. We were glued to our television sets as the day unfolded at Columbine High School. When the day was over, 12 students and 1 teacher were dead. There were another 23 that were wounded.
I can’t believe that is has already been 10 years. There are vigils and gatherings set up all around Denver CO, yesterday and today to hold those lives that we lost in memory.
A lot was learned of the tragedy. Gun laws have changed. Operational procedures have become more aggressive in many places to go after gunmen, instead of approaching with caution. A lot that was learned at Columbine was applied at Virginia Tech when a shooter claimed 32 lives 2 years ago.
I ask that you all take a moment of silence today to observe those lives that we lost 10 years ago today and for the brave women and men that kept the lives lost to a minimum.

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ReLogic has thousands and thousands of registered users for our website, people that are actively looking to buy Denver CO real estate. I’ve had two people in the last week, that have tried to send emails to the spouses that came back to ReLogic. Both of the couples are going to buy a home in the next 30-60 days. And both have agency with other agents. So they are using the wonderful ReLogic website to do the majority of the work that an old school agent would have done, and they aren’t reaping any of the benefits. The first couple is looking near $275, which would equate to a nearly $5000 credit to them at closing. That would basically take care of the majority of the closing costs. And the second couple, 700k buyers. That is a $15,000 credit to them at closing, which will now go to their lackluster agent. I wonder if the agents send them to our site, saying, “Use this wonderful site to do my job so I can spend more time on the golf course and still be WAY overpaid!” Maybe it’s a slightly different version of that. I just don’t get why some people want to flush perfectly good money right down the toilet.

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So I went to the Arapahoe County auction today to bid on a couple properties for ReLogic, and ended up winning on both of them! With so many distressed properties in Denver real estate and the fact that the residential market continues to be slow, we have started to buy properties at auction and either flip them or rent them. And we just so happened to score two of them today. One may get redeemed out from under us via an HOA lien, but all in all it was a good day. Now we’ll have to rehab the property and get it ready to be back on the market in the next 30 days, but with the ARV (after rehab value) should leave us with a pretty nice margin.

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Let’s go back a few posting and compare the indices that we had discussed back then. Yesterday, Case Shiller released their January numbers for the 20 metro areas that they track. Their composite index showed a year over year drop of 19 percent! Looking at month over month numbers, the index dropped by 2.8% from December 08 to January 09. This is in contrast to the 1.7% increase that was reported last week by Federal Housing Finance Agency’s monthly House Price Index. The FHFA index does not include relies on Freddie and Fannie data, so they do not include home purchased with mortgages too large or risky for those government organizations. So depending on which index you look at and track, things could be looking up or down. Being the optimist that I am, things are always looking up in my world Critics of the Case Shiller index say they rely too heavily on resales of distressed properties which the NAR says account for over 40% of existing home sales this year.
Case Shiller does have some “good” data for Denver CO real estate…looking back over the past 12 months, Denver is one of the top performing markets in the US, only down 5.1%…only behind Dallas who is down 4.9%.

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This past week, ReLogic, the future of Denver CO real estate, decided to take a look at purchasing some leads from lead aggregators. After much due diligence, I decided on a company called leadtorealty.com. I have purchased leads in the past and they have never really turned out to much. I used to purchase leads for my mortgage business. Some of them would turn out ok…but I had to follow up with the leads numerous times. We had a great system in place and had a pretty decent lead source. We did get burnt by one company out of LA ( I can’t remember their name but they rooked us for well over a grand).
So I’m trying to get my hands around this company and see what they are all about. Since I have dealt with some really bad lead aggregators in the past, I am always cautious going into these relationships. So far, I’m not sold on this company as they have sent me some wood (meaning timber…dead wood) but I’m willing to go through my “trial” phase to see what they get over to see and see if it is worth continuing our relationship past our first date.
Stay tuned for more on this interesting one.

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So I was on the last plane to leave Denver International Airport yesterday. Wasn’t sure we were actually going to get into the air until we were actually in the air. Had to be deiced a couple of times and had a small window of opportunity to take off after all other flights had been cancelled. Pretty lucky of us to get out of there with all the snow.
Now I am in Sarasota FL…one of the areas of the country that saw a HUGE run up in real estate prices during the housing boom. And I’m completely surprised to see some of the monstrosities that they are still building here. Multimillion dollar homes on the water. Is there still money to be made here??? I guess if people are still building, but on my 7 mile run this morning, I did see a TON of inventory on the market too. On the street we are staying on, there it seems like every third house is on the market, and who knows how long it has been sitting there.
I guess I am glad that my business is involved in what appears to be the much more stable Denver Colorado real estate market.

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There are so many different agencies and organizations that measure housing activity in different ways that sometimes it is hard to see what is really happening in the marketplace. Take for instance the report from the Federal Housing Finance Authority that reports housing prices were up 1.7% in January 2009 compared with December 2008. This was the first monthly increase in over a year. The FHFA index measures the entire country and is largely based on information provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Case Shiller index shows different numbers because they cover more concentrated geographical areas versus the nation as a whole. FHFA shows home prices are down 6.3% for the past year and a 9.6% decline from the peak in April 2006. Case-Shiller on the other hand shows a 18.6% decline from last year and a 27% drop from the peak. Case-Shiller numbers for January will be released next Tuesday. How does this effect Denver CO real estate??? That depends on what indices you track….they all show different how your money stacks up.

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