January 2010

Selling a home in today’s real estate market can be an eye-opening experience for many sellers.  Many acknowledge the changing real estate landscape, but since their home is clearly the “best one in the neighborhood”, short sales and foreclosure sales are often dismissed as irrelevant.  This perception is particularly true in areas where short sales and foreclosures represent a high ratio of overall home sales.

In order to effectively compete with this trend, it’s critical to understand how these types of transactions impact local real estate markets.  Zillow.com recently published the results of their research into the percentage of foreclosure home sales and the associated “foreclosure discount” in different real estate markets across the country. 

According to the Colorado Department of Education, the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) is now the 8th largest in the state, with 29,011 students.  In addition, the adjacent St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) is the state's 9th largest district, with 26,724 students.  From 2004 through 2008, the SVVSD also ranked as the 4th fastest-growing district in the state.

These two Colorado school districts combined, service a large part of the Front Range and play a vital role in the Boulder real estate market.  For more information on either school district, visit our schools page.

If you have any questions about Boulder real estate, please feel free to contact us.

The residential re-sale market in Lafayette ended 2009 with mixed results, but those results indicate that the market above $500,000 may have some bright spots (based on data is from IRES, as of 1-22-10).  Overall, the Lafayette real estate market ended 2009 with the median price of a sold listing actually up 26%.  However, much of that increase is likely due to the fact that some of the more expensive homes in Lafayette have been selling - driving the median price up.  In fact, if we look at the overall average price/sf in Lafayette in 2009, it was only up 6%.

In terms of the number of sales or sales volume in Lafayette, overall volume was down.  The number of units listed for sale was down 9%, the number of units under contract was down 12%, and the

It's a relatively small company, but Irrigation Water Technologies (IWT) announced today that they have signed a lease for 12,000 sf in Longmont and will be relocating their operation and 11 employees from Colorado Springs to our area immediately.  The article in the Boulder County Business Report is here.

Those of us fortunate enough to live in Boulder County already know what IWT discovered: The Front Range is a great place to live and work!  Mr. Collis Woodward, IWT's Chief Financial Officer summarized their relocation decision this way:  "IWT America chose Longmont because of its proximity to the Front Range labor market as well as its atmosphere and reasonable cost of living."

As always, if you're interested in Boulder real estate, relocating to

The Federal Housing Authority, or FHA, is changing the rules on FHA loans, and these rule changes will make the loans more expensive.  Traditionally, borrowers with less-than-stellar credit and/or less than 10% down would turn to an FHA loan.  A lender could approve the loan under FHA guidelines, with as little as 3% down.  While the amount down was recently raised to 3.5%, these new changes are far more significant.  The FHA basically charges for this insurance in 2 ways - an up-front fee (MIP) and an annual fee, both of which the borrower pays.

Starting in the Spring or early Summer (no exact date was given), the new FHA guidelines will include the following provisions:

• If the buyer's FICO score is below 580, the minimum down payment requirement will

I read an article and heard on TV today that "...foreclosure filings hit a record in 2009" and that more were expected in 2010.  Pretty interesting headline and there are some numbers to back it up:  According to Realty Trac, there were over 2.8 million homes that faced at least 1 foreclosure filing in 2009.  That's not foreclosures, but foreclosure filings; the difference is that not all homes that are initially posted for foreclosure end up being foreclosed.  Still, 2.8 million is a big number.  As it has been now for several years, there is no shortage of bad news about the national real estate market.  I was anxious to research our local market here in Boulder County to see how we fared in 2009 vs. the national trend(s).

In previous posts, we have

In the closely-watched S&P/Case-Shiller report released today (see above chart), Denver was the top performer out of the 20 major metropolitan housing markets tracked.  Specifically, Denver’s housing market showed only a a 0.1 percent dip in year-over-year prices in the year ending in October, 2009, compared with an overall drop of 7.3% for the 20 areas in the report.  The 10-city index in the report declined overall by 6.4%.  The worst market performer . . . Las Vegas, which declined 26.6% during the same period.

Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., said that Denver’s No. 1 ranking is the latest sign that Denver’s economy is out-performing the nation’s.  “Job growth does matter,” Clark said. “What a

We all make them:  New Year’s Resolutions.  Taking stock of all the things we hope to change from the previous year, we vow to make changes in the New Year.  What we don’t always do . . . is follow through.  This year, as we enter a new decade and look back at what many call one of the worst real estate markets in recent memory, we have an opportunity to make some New Year’s Real Estate Resolutions.

The U.S. Government provided some stimulus for real estate markets across the country in the last couple of years; initially it was the first-time home buyer credit, then the revised credit, then the revised/extended credit that now includes a credit for buyers who have owned their previous homes for 5 out of the previous 8 years.  The bad news is that this