Today could be the opportune time to buy a 2nd home. With real estate prices down huge in many areas of the country, those with the ability to make purchases, are snapping up 2nd homes at absolutely amazing prices. Home prices have steadily fallen over the past couple years, and coupled with low interest rates, now could be the time to make that purchase. For example, according to the Florida Association of Realtors, the median home price in FL in January of 2009 was down 33% from a year earlier. Prices in Hilton Head Island SC are down anywhere from 20-40%. And many vacation home markets in California have seen significant price drops.
Here in Colorado, not too many people purchase Denver Colorado real estate for a 2nd home, but we do have the mountain regions which have surprisingly held their values well during this time of turmoil. People aren’t really doing much buying and selling though. Transaction volume is down HUGE! It seems like much of the driving force of these transactions is high dollar volume, meaning over $2 million.

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I have been a loyal Verizon customer for almost 10 years now. But I am going to change over next week to Sprint. It has been a downward spiral with Verizon over the past 4-5 months. My world edition Blackberry was not working great, so I needed a new one. I opted to buy the brand new (yeah, I bought it at 7am the day it came out) Blackberry Storm. It looks cool and I love some of the applications and features, but it sucks to type on, and worse yet, is so slow it drives me insane. I hate this phone, and I rarely use that word. On top of my bitterness towards the BB Storm, I pay close to $180/month (including taxes and fees) for unlimited services. I can get all of this at Sprint for $99/month, (plus taxes and fees). So I am going to make the switch and see how I like the service. I am getting the BB Curve, so I’ll be back to a “normal” keyboard and a good business phone, with a camera on it. I may miss some of the features of the Storm, like being able to search for Denver CO real estate via the great web browser, but I’m sure I won’t miss the uber frustrating slowness of it. I just hope Sprint can live up to Verizon’s lofty network standards that I have become so accustomed too. Anyone want to buy a BB Storm???

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Denver Colorado real estate didn’t see the crazy appreciate in home prices that much of the country experienced just a few short years ago. And Denver hasn’t necessarily seen the crazy depreciation that much of the country has been seeing. According to a recent survey by Radar Logic, Denver was one of two cities nationally that experienced an increase of price per square foot from November 2008 to December 2008, an upswing of 1.2%. The same survey represents that Denver real estate has dropped in price per square foot 2008/2007 by 10.5%. Other indices do show Denver as one of the more stable markets in the US at this point in time with Boulder CO real estate showing modest year over year increases.

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It’s another record breaking day in the Denver weather department. Mid 70’s in the beginning of March??? Go figure. This is what brought me out to this great state 14 years ago. I was visiting Colorado State University back in February of 1995. It was snowing when we flew into Denver and made the drive up to Fort Collins. The next day, 70+ degrees and sunny. I knew I had found my home then. What more can we ask for…other than an economic recovery :-)…snow in the mountains (we don’t need it in the city in my opinion) and warm sunny days in the city. I feel bad for those back east and in the south that have dealing with winter cold and snow in the south!?!? Get yourselves in gear and buy some Denver CO real estate and you too can enjoy all that this state has to offer, including crazy weather!

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So when will some of these big technology companies start to buy again? There are a handful of tech companies that are sitting on mountains (literally) of cash! Take a look at this short list. Cisco, $29.5 billion. Applie, $25.6 billion. Microsoft, $20.7 billion. Google, $15.9 billion. Intel, $11.8 billion. Oracle, $10.6 billion. HP, $10.2 billion. Yahoo, $3.5 billion. WOW, that is A LOT of money when you add all of that up. Those guys could have paid up front from 15% of the stimulus bill that Obama signed yesterday. Or they could come and buy Denver CO real estate. Or let’s all go to Vegas and have the time of our lives!!!
Tech companies usually don’t pay out dividends to shareholders or buy back stock, so they are going to continue to sit on this cas until when?? That my friends is the billion dollar question.

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President Barack Obama came to Denver CO today to sign into law a $787 billion stimulus bill. Included in this bill is a Home Buyer Tax Credit. The originally proposed $15k tax credit got modified as it passed through the House and Senate, and what we’re getting now is an $8000 tax credit that will NOT have to be repaid, which is different than the $7500 tax credit that we saw in 2008. This new credit should drive hundreds of thousands of new home purchases in 2009. And this should help other parts of the economy as well. When people buy houses, there are inherent other purchases, including furniture, appliances, moving expenses among other items that should help stimulate the economy too. There are definitely some unhappy people who bought Denver CO real estate in 2008 and received the tax credit for $7500 that they now have to pay back! What are your thoughts on this matter?

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It’s still a bit early to say that we are turning the corner, or even approaching that corner, but we got another dose of good numbers that I’d like to share with you. The news is encouraging, especially when they start to pile up and aren’t just here and there. On top of the 6.5% increase we saw in sales in December, the latest Pending Home Sales index is up 6.3%. So you’re asking yourself, what is this index and what does it mean? The index is a barometer that measures how many homes should closing in the coming months. It shows how many homes are under contract, but haven’t closed yet. And we all know in real estate, It’s Trash Till It’s Cash! Write that down. It’s one of my favorite sayings. But this index is a reliable reading on where we are going in the housing market. In the midst of all the bad economic news that we see day in and day out, being the optimist that I am, I like to focus on the positive things that are out there affecting the national market as well as our local Denver CO real estate market.

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After reading all the headlines about how bad our economy is (see my last post) and all the massive layoffs the major corporations are doing, it’s hard to believe that real estate sales we actually up in December….up by 6.5%!!! That is coupled with the news that real estate inventories are down by 12%, and have fallen below the critical 6 month level in 7 major metropolitan areas. The six month supply is a level described as balanced between supply and demand. This includes Denver!!! I like to see Denver CO real estate on the map in a positive light.
Only the Northwest saw a decline in sales in December, a modest 1% at that. Sales in the Midwest were up 4%, the South saw a 7% increase and the West won with a whopping 14% increase. Low low mortgage rates and lower prices are two of the major factors leading to these numbers.
Granted, 45% of December’s sales were foreclosures or short sales, but sales are sales my friends.

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Wow, how many more jobs can we lose? How many more friends can lose their jobs? What a tough economy we are in. Everyone is talking about how bad things are and there are so many BIG companies laying people off. Nobody is immune from small businesses to major international corporations. Caterpillar, 20k. ING, 7k. Philips, 6k. Home Depot, 7k. Pfizer, 20k. Texas Instruments, 3400. Sprint Nextel, 8k. General Motors, 2k. Microsoft, 5k. Intel, 6k.
Can the economic stimulus package that Obama is touting save the economy? Can it keep us in a recession instead of a depression where we could be heading?
My crystal ball is broken so I can’t answer any of these questions for you, but I’m ready for this bloodbath to be over. How can we be expected to sell Denver, CO real estate when people don’t have jobs? Nobody wants to buy a house with so much uncertainty. But people are looking. Our website visitors for January are double what they were for December. C’mon folks, buy something. Money is cheap and affordability is high!!! Do it today!

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ReLogic is now in the business of renting Denver CO real estate. Over the past few months, ReLogic has been acquiring distressed houses at auction. ReLogic will then send in a team to completely remodel the houses. Most of these include a completely new kitchen, with granite counters, new cabinets and new appliances. Harwood floor and new carpet are often installed as well and new paint really brightens up the look of the home. We have been installing new AC and furnaces in many of our homes as well. We were initially looking to sell these properties but with the current market environment, we are now renting some of these houses. It turns out that the rental market is hot hot hot. We currently have about 10 houses that we are looking to rent, and we will also consider rent to own options for these as well. Contact us today to see our list of current inventory and get moved into a great new remodeled Denver home at a great price. This Denver CO real estate won’t last long!!!

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