News Flashes for Denver Homes & Real Estate

- The Bandy Team is pleased to announce that for 2010 they were the 5th most productive team within the RE/MAX Professionals company of 400 agents, as measured by sales volume. And the team placed 7th for all RE/MAX Teams in the Denver metro area. In addition, the team received the Chairman's Award from RE/MAX International, which is based on sales volume and is only awarded to the top 2% of agents nationwide. If you're looking to buy or sell a home in the Denver area, the Bandy Team gets results and has the proof to back it up. In 2010, we sold 79 homes. Give us a call, so we can get results for you.

- The results are in and, once again, U.S. RE/MAX agents outsold all competitors by a considerable margin in 2010. RE/MAX led all national franchises in total transaction sides (754,333) and transaction sides per agent (13.1). This is the 13th consecutive year that RE/MAX agents in the U.S. have led the industry in production. The Bandy Team is proud to be a part of the RE/MAX family and to be able to offer our clients all the many services that includes.

-In a report from CNN Money Magazine, Douglas County, CO is ranked #4 in the country for job growth over the past 10 years with a job growth rate of 64.5%. Major Towns in Douglas County include: Castle Rock, Castle Pines, Lone Tree, Parker, and Highlands Ranch. Perched between Colorado's two largest cities, Denver and Colorado Springs, Douglas County's lifestyle has attracted big business. Six Fortune 500 companies are based here, including major employers like Liberty Media, Dish Network, Teletech, CH2M-Hill and Sprint Nextel. Attracted by a great tax rate, a highly educated workforce and some of the most beautiful country on any side of the Rocky Mountains, more companies are moving to Douglas County and bringing jobs.

- Four local towns made the top 30 list in CNN-Money Magazines Best Places to Live list, announced in the Sept. 2011 issue. The four front range Colorado towns were Louisville (#1), Castle Rock (#19), Superior (#20), and Parker (#29). The towns made the list because they "stood out in the qualities that American families care about most -- job opportunities, top-rated schools, safe streets, economic strength, nice weather, and plenty to do."

- The Denver area ranked 19th out of 146 markets nationwide in online searches for real estate listings at Realtor.com in both March and April, ahead of New York, Houston and Washington, D.C. The website said the median list price for homes in the Denver market in April was $249,900, up 4.17 percent from March.

- Home Affordability Reaches Highest Level in 20 Years - Homes are more affordable to more families, according to the latest index for the first quarter of 2011 that shows affordability reaching its highest level in more than 20 years. Nearly 75 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the first quarter of 2011 were affordable to families earning the national median income of $64,400, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index.

- When it comes to public transportation, Denver is No. 1, according to a list of the top 10 Best Cities for Public Transportation recently published by U.S. News and World Report. RTD statistics show that metro Denver has 140 bus routes, five light-rail lines and roughly 10,000 stops, all covering a seven-county area the size of Connecticut.

- Home Ownership Still a Great Investment - Seventy-five percent of Americans say that "owning a home is the best long-term investment they can make and is worth the risk of ups and downs in the housing market," according to a new survey of 2,000 bipartisan voters by the National Association of Home Builders. More buyers are coming up through the pipeline too. The survey found that 73 percent of those surveyed who do not own a home said their goal is eventually to buy one.

- Foreclosure filings at 2-year low in Colorado urban areas - Initial foreclosure filings and final foreclosure sales in Colorado's 12 biggest counties fell for the sixth consecutive month, the Colorado Division of Housing reported Tuesday. There were 2,002 foreclosure filings in May, down 24% from May 2010, according to the report.

- Denver is the fastest-selling real estate market in May, based on the median age of housing inventory of 146 markets tracked by Realtor.com. In Denver, homes are selling on average in just over a month at 39 days. Median list price is $253,700.

- A recent survey of the "Best Places for Business & Careers" by Forbes magazine ranks Denver number 9 out of 200 metro areas nationwide. The study considered 12 metrics related to job growth (past and projected), costs (business and living), income growth, educational attainment and projected economic growth. Denver's great quality of life and educated workforce make it a favorite among companies looking to relocate. Denver is becoming a popular choice for relocations.

-- Downtown Denver Partnership has outlined the organization's initiatives for the coming year: - The first phase of a $62 million face-lift for the Denver 16th Street Mall is set to begin this fall. - Now that it has been designated an urban development area, work begins in earnest to create a large mixed-use development in Arapahoe Square northeast of downtown Denver. - Work continues to attract residential housing in downtown Denver (LODO), with a goal of 18,000 new condos and lofts by 2027.

- Watch out for Generation Y: This large, diverse, well-educated generation will drive the Denver housing market recovery over the next 10 years, according to economists with the University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate. Gen Y (15-32 year olds) boasts about 77.4 million members, which is about equal in size to the baby boomers (46-64 years old). Yet, Gen Y is much more diverse and educated (60 percent of Gen Y goes to college), according to the center, which recently presented its findings at the USC Lusk Center Orange County Executive Briefing.

- LoHi Denver Neighborhood: What Makes LoHi so hot? - On a slope overlooking downtown Denver, the Highlands neighborhood was founded to provide a leafy respite from what was then central Denver's smoky mills, questionable drinking water, and even more questionable morals (Highlands had no liquor licenses until after Prohibition). The Lower Highlands (LoHi) District, is the closest of the Highlands neighborhoods to downtown Denver via three pedestrian/bike bridges over rails, the Platte River, and I-25. LoHi's building boom and lease/home sales rates have continued strong through the recession. Today, LoHi hosts the city's newest, hippest housing, watering holes and eateries.

- Prospects for recent college grads are much brighter in Denver than other cities. Forbes.com recently ranked the best cities for young professionals, which it defines as adults aged from 24 to 34 who hold a Bachelor's degree or higher. Denver made the list at #7. "The Mile High City boasts a significant college-educated population, a note-worthy number of small businesses and a healthy job growth rate that's bolstered by the presence of companies like Lockheed Martin and IBM." These factors combine to give strength to the Denver real estate market as well.

- We are pleased to announce that home buyers and sellers realize what we have always known, RE/MAX agents are the ones that consumers trust most when it comes to navigating a sometimes challenging real estate market. In the 2011 J.D. Power and Associates Home Buyer/Seller Study released in August, buyers and sellers each awarded RE/MAX the highest rankings in customer satisfaction. Here's the video by RE/MAX CEO Margaret Kelly: RE/MAX Receives J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Award
Here's the Press Release with Results.

- The new light-rail station two blocks west of Denver Union Station opens August 15. The station is adjacent to the Millennium Bridge in Lower Downtown Denver (LoDo). "Denver Union Station is the centerpiece of RTD's FasTracks transit expansion program and will serve as a hub for the region," the transit agency said in a statement. The new platform, at 16th Street and Chestnut Place, will have a shuttle connection to the 16th Street Mall.

- Greenwood Village, CO ranks #18 on a new Money magazine list of the nation's 25 "top-earning towns" based on median family income. Located in Arapahoe County, Greenwood Village has a median family income of $160,962 and a median home price of $545,000. "Once a small rural community, Greenwood Village now boasts two business parks and is home to quite a few major employers.

- LoDo In Denver, the acronym for Lower Downtown Denver was listed as a top 10 transformed downtown area by the American Planning Association. Formerly a rundown warehouse district, Denver's lower downtown area welcomed a restoration renaissance after $240 million in public funds were designated to cleaning up the streets and more than 100 Victorian warehouses and buildings were restored. Denver's LoDo is home to Coors Field where the Colorado Rockies play baseball and also has a thriving night life with its many restaurants and clubs.

- Broomfield, Colorado selected as one of the best 25 suburbs to retire by Forbes Magazine. - Thirteen miles northwest of Denver, this 55,000-person city enjoys easy access to the big city, a nearby hospital and college, low crime and good air quality. Average home price in Broomfield is less than $300,000, although the cost of living is 7% above the national average. Factors considered included cost of living and the tax climate for retirees (generally a function of state law). Also included was availability of hospitals, higher education, crime rates (almost all the towns listed register less than half the national crime rate) and air quality.

- Positive job market for Denver - In another positive sign for the Denver real estate market, employers in the Denver-Aurora metro area expect to hire at a "steady pace", according to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey released recently. For October to December, 16 percent of the Denver companies interviewed said they plan to hire more employees, while 7 percent expect to reduce staff, according to the report. 73 percent expect to maintain their current workforce levels and 4 percent are not certain about their hiring plans. The survey said that this yields a "Net Employment Outlook" of 9 percent. The report said that for the coming quarter, job prospects appear best in non-durable goods manufacturing, transportation and utilities, wholesale and retail trade, information, education and health services, leisure and hospitality and other services.

- Douglas County has America's youngest housing stock - Few places in America are growing faster than Douglas County, CO, located between Colorado's two largest cities, Denver and Colorado Springs. Since 1990 the population has grown by 373 percent. This 20-year boom is the reason why Douglas County's home inventory is the youngest in America, based on the share of its single-family homes, townhouses and apartments that have been built since 1990, 76.7 percent. Douglas County is popular because of the excellent schools, views of the Rocky Mountains, and an environment that is less crowded, and with clean air.

- Forbes Magazine lists Denver as one of its five healthiest cities, taking into account such factors as clean air quality, residents' health, and the community's promotion of exercise and healthy living. From Forbes: "Denver ranked high in the health of its residents, 61 percent of whom are ranked as in 'excellent or very good' physical health."

- Colorado tied for third in the nation for its concentration of high-tech workers, defined as the ratio of high-tech workers to total private-sector workers. Colorado had 156,900 high-tech workers in 2010, and its high-tech payroll of $14.2 billion ranked 12th nationwide, according to the Cyberstates 2011 report from the TechAmerica Foundation. The average tech worker in Colorado earned $90,800 in 2010, or 96% more than the average private-sector wage, according to the study.

- Young relocating adults choose Denver as top "Cool City" - The Brookings Institution ranks the Denver metro area as the top place to which young adults ages 25-34 relocated during 2008-2010, a drastic change from Denver's national ranking of 12th during the previous three-year period of 2005-2007. According to the article, Denver is a place "where young people can feel connected and have attachments to colleges or universities and live among highly educated residents." He says Denver is among the metro areas "which are known to have a certain vibe...so-called 'cool cities.'" "This data quantifies what we have known for a long time: that Denver, particularly Downtown Denver (LoDo), is a livable, vibrant community with a lot to offer people of all ages," said Tami Door, President and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

- First-time homebuyers accounted for half of all home sales from July 2009 through June 2010, according to a National Association of Realtors survey of buyers and sellers. That's the highest share of first-time-buyer purchases in the history of the survey, which dates back to 1981. First-time buyers responding to the survey made up 47 percent of sales in 2009.

- Absentee home buyers in Denver active - Absentee Denver home buyers (investors and second-home owners) made up 25.1% of all September home sales. That is up from 22.5% in August, but down from 28.4% last year. Absentee buyers paid a median price of $144,000 for Denver homes in September. These real estate investors know good deals when they see them. If you've been thinking of investing in Denver real estate, now is a great time to buy.

- All Four Front Range Cities Rank Among Top 20 Healthiest Housing Markets Nationwide - Fort Collins/Loveland, Colorado Springs, Metro Denver, and Greeley were recently ranked #2, #7, #10 and #20, respectively, by Builder Magazine as having the healthiest housing markets. The magazine projects that building permits will nearly double in 2012 over 2011's numbers. In a "mid-2011 update" posted on Sept. 15th of this year, the magazine said, "There is blooming housing recovery in Denver ... Decent job growth (the metro area is on pace to add 20,000 jobs this year) will contribute to strong income growth of 3.6% next year." The report predicted a decline in Denver foreclosures, which was confirmed recently in a report released by the Colorado Division of Housing. "2011's median home price, $233,100, is only $20,000 below 2006 levels." It also says that the building of the FasTracks light rail system is "creating new building opportunities all over the Denver area."

- The Denver-area housing market ranked fifth in price performance in the closely followed Case-Shiller report released recently. Denver home prices, on a year-over-year basis, showed a 1.5 percent decline in September, less than half of the 3.6 percent overall loss of the 20 metropolitan statistical areas tracked in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Some areas of Denver are actually showing a home price increase versus 2010.

- New data reveals Colorado has reclaimed its position as the No. 2 space economy from Florida. California still leads the pack. Colorado is home to several military aerospace commands, federal labs, aerospace research programs and hundreds of companies, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Ball Aerospace and DigitalGlobe. Welcome all rocket scientists!

- Flippers' role in housing bust larger than thought - A new federal report shows that speculative real estate investors played a larger role than originally thought in driving the housing bubble that led to record foreclosures and sent local economies plummeting in Nevada, California, Arizona, Florida and other states. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that investors who used low-down-payment, subprime credit to purchase multiple residential properties helped inflate home prices and are partly to blame for the recession.

- Colorado foreclosure filings drop again in November - Colorado and the Denver metro area saw sharp declines in the number of properties with foreclosure filings in November, both from the previous month and from November 2010, according to a monthly report Thursday from RealtyTrac Inc. The state had 3,773 properties with filings last month, down 20.2% from the October tally of 4,729 properties. Colorado filings in November were down 24.08 percent from November 2010. Colorado foreclosure filings also dropped in October and September from the previous months, the company reported.

- Downpayments for Colorado home purchases averaging 12.42% - Colorado home buyers would have a difficult time meeting a federal proposal for 20% down payments on home purchases, according to a report today from LendingTree, an online lender exchange. Down payments on Colorado residential real estate purchases are averaging 12.42% through November, LendingTree reports. The proposal is part of an expanded set of requirements that would create a category of "qualified" mortgages with smaller reserves set aside and at lower interest rates. If federal regulators were to adopt the proposed 20 percent down payment requirement, a majority of borrowers wouldn't be able to meet the standard given the findings in this report.

- Real Estate Agents and Home Owners Predict Where Prices Will Rise - Colorado was among the top 10 states where both real estate agents and home owners believe prices will rise in the next 6 months, according to HomeGain's 4th Quarter 2011 National Home Values survey, based on a survey of 400 real estate agents and more than 2,000 home owners. The incredibly low inventory of houses for sale in Denver also points to firming prices for Denver real estate in the next six months.

- Denver-area luxury home sales up in November - The luxury home market in Denver improved slightly last month from October and year-over-year, according to a report Friday. Forty-five local homes with a price tag of more than $1 million sold in November, up eight from the 37 sold in October and up one from November 2010, the report shows. Sellers received 94% of their asking price in November, up from the 89% in November 2010 and the 88% in October. Those homes stayed on the market an average of 167 days, down from October's 196 days but up from the 151-day average set in November 2010.

- Denver No. 1 in U.S. housing market - In an overall weak national housing market, the Denver-area real estate market showed surprising signs of strength, ranking as the top market by one measure, according to the closely watched Case-Shiller report released today. Denver ranked No. 1 of the 20 MSAs tracked in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for the seasonally adjusted change from September to October. Denver showed a 0.5 percent gain by that metric, compared with an overall 0.6 percent drop for the 20 MSAs.

- Centennial called Colorado's safest city - An annual crime-statistics report rates Centennial as the safest city in Colorado, ahead of Longmont and Arvada. "CQ Press City Crime Rankings 2011-2012" uses data that law-enforcement agencies report each year to the FBI. The publication ranks all cities with populations of 75,000 or more according to reported rates of major crimes. Overall, Centennial ranked as the 16th-safest city in the U.S., with Longmont at 53rd and Arvada at 55th. Boulder ranked 86th; Fort Collins, 101st; Westminster, 103rd; Greeley, 146th; Lakewood, 203rd; Aurora, 230th; Colorado Springs, 260th; Denver, 261st; and Pueblo, 272nd.

- Colorado Economy Looking Up - Economic experts are seeing "a light at the end of the tunnel" for Colorado's economy and they expect slow but steady growth this year. Some signs of the state's recovery include strong retail sales, a slight increase in building permits, stabilizing home prices and a rise in business leaders' confidence in the fourth quarter of 2011. The year ahead for Colorado will be "solid, maybe even exciting," based on the record number of prospects that Metro Denver EDC worked with 2011, and is continuing to work with, said Tom Clark, CEO of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

- Colorado foreclosure properties down 29% in 2011 - Colorado saw a 28.6% decline in the number of properties with foreclosure filings in 2011 from the year before, according to RealtyTrac. "There were strong signs in the second half of 2011 that lenders are finally beginning to push through some of the delayed foreclosures in select local markets," said Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac. "We expect that trend to continue this year, boosting foreclosure activity for 2012 higher than it was in 2011, though still below the peak of 2010."

- Optimism Builds in Denver Housing Market - Several recent indicators for the Denver real estate industry are pointing to a market that is on the mend and entering recovery mode. Housing experts' predictions for the new year tend to center around a market stabilizing before entering a gradual, albeit very slow, recovery. However, the tone is more upbeat than it has been in years for the Denver housing market. Nation-wide existing home sales are expected to increase 12% this year, following a 2% jump last year, Moody's Analytics predicts.

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Marianne Bandy, CRS, GRI, CDPE
The Bandy Team
Denver, Colorado

Direct: 303-746-7799


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