The numbers are in and it’s been a wild ride! The year started with an insane first quarter, with buyers offering more than $100k over asking price, waiving inspections, covering appraisal gaps. And then, interest rates went up, showings dropped off, prices came down, and the market got… quiet.

It is common for the Denver real estate market to expect a seasonal slow down after July 4th, but this year’s cooling happened early. With the rise in inflation, the Feds pushed hard on rates and buyers pulled back. Many were exhausted by the Q1 rush, some felt the effects of the stock market, while others feared the increased interest rates. When rates rise 1 point, that’s a 10% reduction in buying power.  A reduction in the loan amount often moves a buyer into a lower, more competitive, price point. Home prices have adjusted to these changes, leveling off a bit and shifting toward more balance, between home buyers and sellers.

“Every indicator points to the market shifting closer to a buyer’s market. The month-end active listing increased 21.53 percent last month, pending and closed deals decreased and days in the MLS increased by 30 percent. We are still a long way from what many experts would consider a buyer’s market.” -Andrew Abrams, DMAR Trends Committee Chair

With the number of residential homes on the rise, buyers have more options, but sellers see themselves with more competition than they did earlier in the year. The average close price saw a minor dip from the prior month but year over year, there was a 11.04% increase. As for days on market, there was both an increase from last month and from the same time in 2021.

With all the changes in the economy, we are not surprised to see movement in the real estate market too. However, don’t let the numbers keep you from your end goal. Whether that’s buying, selling, or investing one thing I know is that its your life that moves you, not the market. NOW is always the right time if it fits your personal situation.

Looking for more explanation on all of this? Comment, call/text/email and let’s have a conversation. Or if you’re shy like me, check out the Market Report for Q2 . If you want to see where we are today, click on the Denver Metro Association of Realtors Market Trends Report for August.

 

 

“Tracy is the best!! She sold our 1 bedroom condo in a Historic Register building in Capitol Hill in Denver. Unlike many realtors who are just looking to make a sale and move on to the next, Tracy really cares about her clients and their financial situation. She actually convinced us not to sell the first time we contacted her because the market was in the pits and our condo was worth less than 1/2 what we paid for it. By following her advice and waiting a few years, we ended up making money on the condo when it sold for OVER the asking price. She was incredibly patient with all of our concerns and questions, and knows more about the market than anyone. Also worth mentioning that we were out of state for the whole process, so she handled EVERYTHING; renovations, cleaning, staging, pricing, showing, you name it! She made this very stressful situation much less so, and we can’t imagine using anyone else.” – Keith Orell

2Q16 Showing Traffic - TShaffer [4151395]-page-001 (1)

Wonder why your home didn’t sell in a weekend? Here’s a bit of info on the summer real estate market. If you take a look at the graph you’ll see that showing traffic in 2Q 2016 is down quite a bit from the First Quarter of the year. This is no surprise, it’s been the seasonal trend for the last four years. Coming off of a super-heated real estate market this spring, the usual summer “slowdown” feels more dramatic than a political convention. If you’re “lingering” on the market for a whopping two weeks remember that listings don’t always sell in a weekend and not all of them get twenty offers, especially those priced over $350,000. Summer in Denver is not only the real estate selling season, it’s vacation time too! With so much to do in our lovely state, we get up, get out and go more often and our stressed out home buyers need a break. Showings tend to pick up again after the Fourth of July for those looking to make a move and settle in before school starts in late August. That’s the conventional wisdom coming from an unconventional gal.
What I have seen year-after-year is a strong autumn season for real estate sales when the summer buyers have either completed or delayed their purchase and those who want to serve Thanksgiving in a new home come out to play. Same goes for the end of the year when myth tells us it’s a bad time to list a house for sale. My experience has been that winter buyers are fewer, yes, but they are more serious and with our continued lack of inventory many will see the cooler months as a less competitive time to purchase a home. Look for more soon in my next Real Estate Market Update.

Everybody loves Zillow. I love Zillow. I love how excited it gets buyers and sellers when they see a home they love or what a neighbor’s house is selling for; a useful tool in many ways, for better or worse, it empowers the consumer. I look at Zillow to see what my clients/potential clients are taking as accurate information… and then I do my homework. The #Denver #realestate market is moving so quickly that even agents and appraisers can have a hard time keeping up. Public record algorithms don’t have the ability to distinguish the differences in the quality of one property from the other, upgrades, location, or if there’s a crack house next door. Algorithms don’t call other agents to inquire about that “Coming Soon” sign or have the latest data on solds as it takes some time to record.
The Los Angeles Times recently published an article that lays it out quite clearly. Though a “Zestimate” can have a low margin of error, it can also be alarmingly high. Imagine a scenario where you’re meeting with your perspective agent thinking that your home is worth 26% more than what it will really sell for.
Sellers, armed with the Internet, often have an idea in their heads about their home’s value. When I pull comparable properties, show them what the list vs sold prices are and how many days on market it’s taken those homes to sell, they may find a different story. Sometimes the news is good, based upon my data, their home may be worth more than they think. Other times it can be a let down.
Buyers burn the midnight oil searching Zillow then send me a link to their dream home. When I hit the MLS at 7 a.m. most often I find that this dream home is under contract… or sold three months ago. If you’re looking to buy a home, I’ll send you to REColorado, the consumer website linked to the Denver Matrix MLS I use so we can work together efficiently. It’s updated throughout the day, has great home search capabilities and saves me time looking for your real home, not the one someone’s already moving in to.
All this to point out that you now have access to a lot of information about my business. A lot of it is helpful and a whole lot of fun, but none is as accurate as hiring a professional; one who specializes in finding the right home in the right neighborhood that suits your needs. If you’d like an “Exact-i-mate” about what your home might sell for in today’s Denver market, give me a call I’d be glad to sit down with you and show you your market value and why.

Denver is a crazy-hot real estate market right now with low inventory and multiple offer situations, especially in desirable neighborhoods like Park Hill. Whether you are buying, selling or both, you’ll need to be very prepared and your first step is finding the right Realtor®. Listen to what the Bernuths have to say about their experience.

Jim and Mary Bernuth wanted to downsize from their beautiful Congress Park bungalow to something smaller but with the same charm.We looked at many homes but the heat turned up when their Congress Park beauty went under contract. Like most current sellers, they were nervous about finding the right replacement home and timing both transactions to make a seamless move. We found “The One” and quickly put in an offer… which was rejected. The sale of their home was complicated on the buyers’ side, adding to the stress. Thank you, Jim and Mary, for sharing how it turned out for you and why you recommend TracysDenverHomes for your real estate needs. Click here for more information on the current Denver market.

It’s one thing when I tell you something and quite another when my clients speak for themselves. Over the past decade Kelly and I have worked to turn her real estate dreams into realities. From selling primary and investment properties to buying her own place to finding the perfect home for her blended family, we’ve had some great adventures! Now this lovely Park Hill homeowner shares her experiences working with me and TracysDenverHomes in four real estate transactions.  I love working with Kelly and she’s been wonderful about referring me to her family and friends. Forever grateful, Ms. Kelly!

“How’s the Denver real estate market?” Being a Realtor© I’m asked question daily and plenty of things factor into the answer; Rising home prices, consumer demand, lack of inventory, new construction changing the face of our neighborhoods, not keeping up with housing demand, skyrocketing rents, the of effect gas and oil prices, interest rates, affordability index, rates of appreciation and what do I think is the next hot area? But the big idea is supply and demand.

The easiest way to bring all of this info into focus is by rolling out the charts and graphs. Take a look at the “Everything You’ve Wanted to Know About the DenverReal Estate Market” chart below and let’s see what it’s telling us.

See those two lines, the blue one and a yellow one? The yellow line is the number of homes for sale in metro Denver every month from January 2007 to December 2015. The blue line is the number of homes sold every month. Inventory peaked in July 2007 at 30,827 homes for sale. That was at the depth of our economic and housing downturn, when fear ruled our market, banks were being shut down, our local and national economies were in shambles, unemployment was rising, and consumer confidence plummeted. No one wanted to take the risk and buy a home. Reasonable doubt about the future took away our appetite for risk. On the seller side home owners were getting slapped with rising monthly mortgage payments as their Option ARM mortgages adjusted upward, sometimes forcing them to sell at the very worst time.

Supply and demand, baby; prices start to fall (2007 to 2009). Around 2010/2011 the market found some balance with 18,000 to 20,000 homes on the market but, like me in my yoga class, it didn’t stay balanced for long. Supply continued to fall… and you know what that means.                    Just like dating; it’s all about the inventory! 

But let’s stop living in the past. In January 2016, there were 4,286 homes on the market! That’s nearly an all-time low for a January since records have been kept. For the past few years we’ve seen an incredibly strong real estate market in metro Denver as the supply of homes performs a vanishing act, putting the imbalance on the other foot. No three dimensional, super fancy, econometrics model can do a better job of explaining the imbalance in our market than this simple chart, but a 3-D printer might be fun.

I know, blah blah blah, Tracy, what about ME? To which I quip, that depends on what you’d like to do. If you own a home and are thinking of moving, it’s an off-the-hook seller’s market and you can expect to get top value for your home (more on pricing later). You’ll need to think about your next home too, and make sure you have planned the process correctly (this is where my mad skills come in) so the transition from your current to future home is seamless. If you’re buying, make sure you’re pre-approved with a strong lender and have a Realtor© who knows how to write a strong and winning offer. (insert mad skills)

So let’s say you’re renting, or one of those basement-dwelling millennials. With rents zooming to all-time highs, you might want to get out of the (basement) rental rat race and buy a home! You’ll need to cultivate patience and persistence but just in case you missed the earlier piece, the payoff can be YUGE!  We expect prices to continue to move up for several years as the inventory balances with the demand, meaning you’ll gain appreciation in your home purchase for the next several years, longer if you stay. You could even turn that first home into a rental property!

There’s no better way to build wealth than owning rental properties for the long term. Home prices have risen, but so have rents, and interest rates remain at record lows. Smart investors don’t try to time the real estate market; it’s as difficult to do as timing the stock market. The vast majority of Americans who have built wealth as real estate investors have done it buying rental property and having their tenants pay it off for them over time. It’s not complicated and it works.

Of course, everyone’s situation is unique. If you want to talk about how best to take advantage of our real estate market and see what it can do for you please give me a call. I love talking about the real estate market! 

Sellers and pricing  Now that I’ve got you all pumped up on the Super-hero strength of our housing market, let me tell you another trend I’ve been seeing. Rising prices come as welcome news to sellers, but lately I’ve noticed that not every home sells in a weekend bidding war. Buyers are not stupid and overly ambitious pricing still means that homes languish on the market. Every day my inbox brings email announcements of price reductions after sellers and/or their agents over-shoot the mark.  Call me and I’ll be happy to run a complimentary Comparative Market Analysis on your home to let you know what it’s really worth in today’s market. It’s always better to have an ‘exactament’ than a ‘zestimate’.

 

 

 

 

I hear the question “Is it still a good time to buy a house in Denver?” quite often, as potential home buyers wonder whether they’ve missed the market. My answer is that yes, it’s still a good time to buy a house in Denver, though it’s going to take resilience, and let me tell you why. Even though the dream of getting a screaming deal on a foreclosure got on the bus and left the depot, the strength of today’s market and home affordability show that buying a house in Denver is still a great idea.

It looked for a moment that the Denver Real Estate Market was slowing down toward the end of the summer and into fall, but what I’m seeing now, we still have a very strong market! Showing activity is high meaning that buyers are out there looking, and inventory as of January 1 was still very, very low at one month of inventory  [meaning if no other homes came on the market it would only take a month to sell them ALL].

Buyers will need to be prepared to pull the trigger in this tight market; pre-qualified, well qualified and ready to present a strong offer to win in the ever-so-common bidding wars.  This can mean a number of things I’d be glad to go over with you specifically. Many Buyers will conduct a home inspection solely for informational purposes without asking the Seller to repair or credit for inspection items. This relieves the Seller of the anxiety of a major or costly issue coming up and being asked to pay for it, and though the Buyer may feel similar anxiety over having to assume a house “AS-IS” they can, if done properly, still terminate the contract should the home prove unsatisfactory. Reasonable buyers, sellers and their agents would rather work out a fair negotiation than lose a good contract, even with this stipulation. Another strategy I’ve seen applied is for the buyer to offer to make up some or all of any difference between the contract purchase price and the appraised value of the home should it come in low. As bidding wars force prices up, last month’s comps may not provide the appraiser with enough information to value at contract price, or the home might have exceeded current market value. The market is moving so fast, many buyers would rather kick in some extra cash than go back out looking once they’ve found and been accepted on a home they love. Of course, you’ll have to have the cash to do this so a bit of planning might be in order if you decide to employ this.

The good news for you Buyers is that real estate still offers great wealth building potential. Using standard assumptions (5% annual appreciation), a home purchased today for $250,000 with a 10% down payment and a 4.5% interest rate can produce about $200,000 in equity in a decade! Those of you who are renting may want to think seriously about investing in yourselves.  Even if you don’t have a full 10% for the down, there’s still $$$ to be made.

There are two myths in real estate that are not holding up in today’s Denver market. One is that real estate runs in seven year cycles; statistics show the last up-swing lasted for seventeen, plenty of time to build equity.  The second myth is that condos are the last to rise in value and the first to tank. Right now we are seeing condominium values appreciating similarly to single homes. Overall home affordability remains attractive when you factor in interest rates, home prices and average rents (up 40% over the past five years). A very good time to buy, but before you do I advise investing in some good running shoes.

new-year-2015As the clock ticks toward year’s end, it’s time to review the 2015 real estate market.
When someone asks me how the real estate market is, the cocktail party answer is that it’s been a very pleasing 12 months and future looks bright and shiny. Because the economic news is good our Denver Metro real estate market is projected to stay strong but not overheat. I’ll share some of the metrics I use to evaluate the market and understand it better, describing what 2015 looked like and where I think we’re headed.
Market strength–2015 was an extremely strong seller’s market. The market strength peaked in the spring when the bottom dropped out of our inventory and multiple offers were all the rage. Frustrating for buyers who felt they had to give away so much to stay competitive, the good news is that the market reacted appropriately and became more balanced as the year progressed. With prices on the rise, sellers were motivated to sell as we approached the fall so the market cooled with the start of school and the weather. It is still a strong seller’s market, but far more in balance. I expect 2016 to continue along this line and see no sign of a major imbalance that could lead to any sort of ugly peak and crash. Sellers should get a good price for their homes and replacement properties should not be as hard to find.
Buyers– Real estate website Trulia says that buying an average home in Denver is a whopping 38 percent cheaper than renting a home! For the average home, the interest rate would have to skyrocket to 11 percent for renting to become cheaper than buying, meaning that it is currently MUCH more affordable to buy than to rent. Even with current prices and current rents, interest rates would have to nearly triple to make renting more affordable than owning. (Call me if you want to talk about this.)
Sellers-Can’t say this enough: the most important thing to prepare your home for sale is to get rid of clutter. This includes furniture. You may have learned to live with that cherished armchair stuffed into the corner but a professional stager will often times whisk away half of your furniture. The house looks so much bigger for it, leaving space for a buyer couple and their agent to tour the home without bumping into each other, and space for their imaginations to make it their own. You don’t have to go “Stager drastic” but take a hard look, be objective, and see what you can live without. Painting always pays for itself and statistics show that springing for a staging company is often a good investment.
Rental Vacancies– The rental market is stronger than it has ever been in metro Denver. The vacancy rate for 1- to 4-unit properties is an extremely low 2 percent. That’s a drop from the already 4.7% we’d been experiencing for the past few years. On top of this, rents are rising faster than ever, up 30% in the past three years. With rents equaling a mortgage payment, we’re seeing more renters making the decision to buy. Why live waiting for another rent increase, tough competition and another application process without building any equity? Many homeowners who lost their homes in the downturn and have been renting, are becoming eligible to purchase once again. This is great news for the market and will certainly lead to more sales in 2016, though the influx of buyers insures a continuing seller’s market.
Interest rates– No one knows exactly what interest rates will do in the future but my best guess is that they may rise a little in 2016, but only a little. Remember that the Federal Reserve has control over only short-term, not long-term interest rates. Even if the Fed raises rates, that doesn’t directly affect the 30-year home buyer interest rate you are concerned with. Long-term interest rates are affected by the bond market (as bond prices decrease, interest rates increase) which, frankly, is not predictable. Understand though that interest rates are at near 50-year lows so they are highly unlikely to fall any further. All we know for sure is that someday they will go up.
The Economy– No matter what you may hear in the months leading up to the election (places hands over ears), right now the metro Denver economy is very strong. This is fueling our terrific real estate market and the rising population of our city. The unemployment rate is extremely low, about 3.5 percent. Inflation will stay in the range of 1-2 percent, our population is rising at a rate of 50,000 people/year and consumer confidence continues to rise. Nothing can be better for the housing market than a strong and steady economy.
Mortgage -The single most important number for a home buyer is their FICO score. For good or bad, your FICO plays a major role in your ability to finance your home purchase. Your credit score is a snapshot taken by the three leading credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian, to help lenders determine what sort of credit risk you are. Your FICO is a number between 300 and 850 and is calculated by a complex algorithm assessing your past credit history. Most home lenders will consider a score over 700 to be excellent while scores below 600 are considered poor. The better the score the more credit will be extended, at better terms, with a lower interest rate. The best credit terms are extended to consumers with scores above 740. Therefore, it’s critical to understand what your FICO is and what you can do to improve your score. When I work with buyers I help them understand the factors affecting their score so they can work to improve them. I can’t think of a better investment in your future than to spend a little time working on your FICO score.
Here are a few tips I give my clients:
1.Don’t max out your cards, try to keep them under 50% of available credit. Running high balances can severely impact your FICO.
2.Continue paying your bills on time.
3.Don’t apply for new credit or cancel an old card because length of credit helps.
4.Pay down high balances.
5.Dispute and resolve any inaccurate items in your credit report.
6.Invest in a credit monitoring company to track the changes to your score.