May 2009

If you haven't heard of "home staging", chances are you will.  Staging a home is a relatively simple concept that is based on the common-sense approach that a "lived-in" home shows better than a vacant one.  Although it can be taken to the extreme and overplayed, there are some practical ways to stage your home in a very cost-effective way; the question is, it is worth it?

Staging a home allows potential buyers to see themselves there, to get a "warm, fuzzy" feeling about the home, making them remember that home more favorably than some others.  Let's face it, if you're putting your home on the market today, it's going to be in a price war and a beauty contest.  Addressing even minor staging issues in your home will help you win the contest and the war!

According to "Today Show" real estate contributor Barbara Corcoran, Denver is the #1 city on the rebound", ahead of #5 San Francisco, #4 Seattle, #3 Austin and #2 Raleigh, NC.  Corcoran rates Denver the leader in these important categories:

• Job Growth
• Growing Population
• Location With Good Weather
• Lots of First-Time Buyers
• No Overbuilding of Condos or Office Spaces
• Vital Downtowns Where People Can Live Without a Car
• Well-Educated Population
• Large Number of Foreclosures Early

Forbes magazine recently ranked Denver as #10 among "Cities Where Americans Are Relocating", and further cites an October 2008 study by PEW Research Center, ranking Denver as "The Most Popular City in America".

Real estate has always been intensely local, and we are well

It's an odd-numbered year and that means reassessment time again.  Many of you received your NOV (Notice of Valuation) from the County Assessor, and you may be questioning the value.  We have an "ad valorem" tax-base system here, which means that taxes are assessed "according to value".  In an escalating market, which we've had in the past, the assessor's valuation can actually lag the market and tax payers are happier; in a more challenging or declining market, the assessor has a much more challenging job.

First, a few facts:  The law requires the assessor to value each property as of June 30th of the prior year, using market data from the previous 12 months.  So, the NOV that you just received is a value assessment as of June 30th, 2008, using market

HVCC sounds like a very common construction component of many homes and businesses, right?  It's anything but common and has nothing to do with construction.  In an attempt to solve a perceived problem with the way appraisals have been ordered and ultimately with perceived appraiser independence, federal regulators have implemented a new regulation effective May 1, 2009 referred to as HVCC, or the Home Valuation Code of Conduct.  If it survives in its present form, it will fundamentally change the way appraisals are ordered, and many believe that the "cure" is far worse thatn the perceived "disease".

The time-honored practice of a local lender hiring a local appraiser to estimate the value of a local property, will disappear under the new HVCC.  The