It isn't that often you see a stucco 2 story home in our market for $230,000, so I had to show off this new listing in Fountain I just took this week. Fountain is a great little town on the south end of the Springs, just outside Ft Carson, and this home is immaculate, with 4 beds, 4 bath, and almost 2200 finished square feet (including the finished basement).

For more details click on the following link: Detailed MLS Information

The weather is definitely getting more spring like. They are talking 50's today, and 60's for Saturday!

"Where the deer and the antelope play" says the old song "Home on the Range". I visited the Banning Lewis Ranch yesterday, and stopped by again this morning on the way back from Falcon to get this picture, taken from the development, with Woodmen Chapel east campus as a backdrop.

Banning Lewis is probably the most important new housing development to arrive in Colorado Springs in recent memory, maybe in our history. The prior residents of this vast tract, shown above, had lots of wide open spaces and area to graze. Sadly, they will not when this one is all over. Although they are hardly an endangered species here, it has always been a comfort to see the herds grazing on the eastern plains.

The first phase of this planned community has just closed it's first homes, and they may have all of 10 residents by the time this month is over, who will be enjoying the new clubhouse, outdoor pool, tennis courts, etc with very little competition. This development is unique from any other that I have seen from these perspectives:

1. The amenities are funded through a special tax district, not HOA dues, so that they are tax deductible, and don't require a lot of collection (or payment) hassles. For approximately $86 per month in taxes, each home gets access to the pool and clubhouse amenities, plus high speed (fiber optic based) internet, and cable television. I pay more than that for just my TV and internet now, so this is sounding pretty good.

2. They are building all the schools for this area as charter schools, using a consistent curriculum, and not waiting for school district 49 to decide when they are needed. The first school is already open, and has a waiting list, even though the neighborhood is not even built out, so schools will be a big draw here.

3. They are targeting fairly affordable price ranges initially, so instead of the $400k+ neighborhoods just to the north in D20, these are all starting in the $200's.

4. The lots, while not large, are being set up so that there lots of cul de sacs with access to walking trails, trading "personal" space for some nice community areas.

5. Unlike some of the communities farther east, this one is all on Colorado Springs city utilities, so they are both more affordable and reliable.

I came prepared to be disappointed, but came away impressed. This one should be a winner. For it's tremendous size, it has to be! Please give me call at 719-590-4768 if you would like a personal tour!

There is something about holding a newborn that is just special. It makes all of the other troubles of life disappear for a while, as you contemplate their utter dependence on others, their complete acceptance of whoever is holding them, and the great journey they have ahead of them.

Shown is our new grand daughter Ashley, about an hour old. She was born last night at the birthing center at the old Memorial Hospital, a still a very nice facility, although not as convenient as the new one for sure! One of the reasons we chose Colorado Springs as our home 17 years ago was that it was a place our children might be able to settle and have their children. Here is proof positive!

This is a special day for us, our newest grandbaby is scheduled to be born today. Of course you never know for sure until it happens, but they are planning on inducing labor, so the odds go up considerably!
The weather seems to be warming up a bit after a cold winter, we should be back in the 50's today. March and April are our snowiest months normally, so we have no illusions that winter is close to over (the best skiing is still ahead of us!), but the warm sunny days are a nice break that you kind of expect when you live here. I did not ski this weekend, Presidents Day is kind of a zoo up in the mountains with all the kids off from school, but maybe after the next storm.
The new Costco at Barnes and Powers opens tomorrow. I am a little skeptical as to how much better of a shopping option it will be over Sam's, but I like choices, so we'll see. A lot of people seem to be waiting for it like it will change the city, the Gazette even gave it front page coverage today. Maybe that says more about the lack of news than it does about Costco! We'll see.

Foreclosure is the "F" word of the real estate business. While to buyers the conotation is bargain, the reality is that foreclosures drive up the cost of loans, make it harder to get financing at all, and depress the supply of other homes on the market that might actually be better selections anyway by lowering average prices. Obviously the affect on sellers is even worse, the foreclosure down the street that sits week after week sure makes it hard to get what a house might truly be worth without it.
Case in point, yesterday I was showing homes in the low 200's, and a couple in the upper 100's. Of 8 homes we set out to see, only 6 would allow showings, and of those, 3 were foreclosures. One needed at least $20,000 in fixups AFTER the bank had already done their best, another maybe only $10-15k. One appeared pretty "run ready" and priced very well, but there were still stipulations that no inspection or financing contingencies would be accepted, so the buyer had to spend some money of their own before they even could know if they were going to get the house. These are risks that many buyers who are stretched for their "cash to close" are not going to be willing to take, even though the house may appear to be a "steal".
Foreclosures make up about 12.5% of our inventory currently, or about 1 in 8 homes on the market. The bulk of them (although certainly not all) seem to be concentrated in the Fountain Valley (15.3% of the total), Southeast (11.4%), Powers (7.8%), East (7.4%) and Central (6%) areas, with the rest kind smattered around the city. Quite a few seem to be on the newer side (not in the East or Central areas), likely buyers who could barely afford the house to begin, couldn't afford the lawn and window coverings after closing, and with either an interest rate bump or a job, medical, or realtionship situation, pushed them over the edge.

Yesterday was our annual awards ceremony at RE/MAX Properties. It was surprising to me that I came in #11 out of 275 agents, given that it really was a pretty tough year. I have hopes for a stronger 2008, and have mentioned the rationale for them in this space before, but they bear some repeating.
1. Interest rates are in the mid 5's, which is great
2. We are starting to get some of our troops home to Fort Carson who have been on deployment in Iraq
3. Fort Carson is growing
4. Some our private sector employers seem to be growing
5. Colorado Springs is an awesome place to live!
They are calling our weather today "the warm before the storm", with highs in the 50's today, and the 20's tomorrow. It's always interesting at least!
We celebrated our Valentine's Day a little early last night, with dinner at the New South Wales Restaraunt. I have to say we were a little disappointed. The food wasn't bad, it just wasn't special. I had the rib eye steak, and Holly had a fish with some kind of artichoke sauce on it. They had been closed for a while with all the construction at I25 and Nevada, and have only recently reopened. Hopefully things improve for them, it is really a good location, and the menu looked like it should be very good.

Mens Fitness Magazine just named Colorado Springs the most physically fit city in America. You'd think we'd get a NFL franchise or something with that kind of talk (actually Denver was #4), but actually there are some things that make this a good place to live for the fitness concious.

1. The Olympic Training Center, with it's bevy of ancillary amateur athletic organizations that are based here, attracts and promotes fitness a lot.

2. The biking and hiking trails here are incredible. The choice of very vertical routes as well as some flat ones attracts users of all ages and fitness interests. I still don't completely get the Pikes Peak Marathon. Somehow running up (and down) Pikes Peak seems more like a heart attack waiting to happen, but hundreds do it, so it must be good for you, right?

3. The "rest" of the Colorado experience, like skiing, boarding, horseback riding, whitewater rafting, even golfing, etc, tends to be more fun if you are in at least some sort of shape. My first ski runs of the year are always a new revelation in what I did not do the rest of the year, so keeping up on some kind of fitness routine seems logical.

4. It is so pretty out so much of the time, you really want to get out and do something.



Having said all this, I am personally dragging the averages down as far as fitness goes. But let's not let this little confession discourage anyone, after all, it is about personal choices, no matter where you live!

Not every thing this week is super, even though the Super Bowl and Super Tuesday, and the "super storm" activity in the midwest would make it sound like it. Our hearts go out to the people are affected by the devastation happening in the mid west and the south, for the lives lost, and those who have been left homeless by these incredible storms.
When the weather goes crazy like this, Colorado is affected sometimes too, but not the way you might think. Our mountains are catching incredible amounts of snow, and while it will be in the 40's and sunny (though windy) here today, it is blizzard conditions in much of the mountains. The result is that our ski resorts, but perhaps more importantly our watersheds, are accumulating a lot of water in the form of snow. The southwest part of the state (Durango, the San Juan mountains, etc) are at almost double the 30 year average for snowpack. The North and South Platte River basins are not doing quite as well, but still well above average, and the Arkansas River watershed is also running way above average. Colorado Springs long term water plan is to figure out a better way to tap water rights from the Arkansas, and a year like this one is an example of why. While some oppose building a pipeline into Pueblo Resevoir for the Springs, it only makes sense when you see the geography, and most of the opposition tends to be general anti growth sentiment as opposed to any real alternative.

Politics in Colorado Springs tend to be a bit lopsided toward the Republican majority. Not that there aren't disagreements, but they tend to play out in the primaries, not the general election. Many seats are uncontested by the time the general election comes around. We are a caucus state, which makes the process a little less than well understood. Precinct level caucus meetings appoint delegates to the county convention, and there will be a presidential straw poll as well. The congressional election this year will be interesting, as the incumbent Doug Lamborn is being challenged by the same 2 people who he had to contend with in the primary originally for the seat, Jeff Crank and Bentley Rayburn. It was actually a very hard fought primary last time, so who knows? El Paso county tends to run about 60% toward whomever the Republican presidential candidate is. In 2004, it was almost 67% for Bush / Cheney, statewide it was just under 52%.
The state as a whole is more of an "up for grabs" deal. The last election we went from a Republican governor and legislature to a Democratic one, and that swing back and forth at the state level will likely go on for a long time, as Denver and Boulder and to a certain extent Pueblo tend to offset a more conservative "rest of the state".
We had a late start school day today again. It sure doesn't seem to take much snow anymore for them to declare a late start. I think we only had an inch or 2 of snow even in Briargate.

The inventory of unsold homes in Colorado Springs held during January at 5386 homes, from an already low point at the end of December, and up only 2.6% over last January. This is VERY good news for those of us who make our living in this industry, because it means we are finally making progress toward a more balanced market, from the lopsided buyers market we have had. No doubt interest rates are helping, along with fewer sellers who are just "testing" the market, and hopefully fewer foreclosures going forward? I showed property yesterday again, and only one of the homes was bank owned, and only 2 were vacant. January statistics probably won't be published until Monday, but it appears we will have a pretty light closing month at under 600 homes closed during January, but with as many pending as there are, February will look pretty good.

This winter seems to be running a little colder than usual, I don't remember so few days above 50 degrees, and so many single digit nights, but the sun feels good, and the snow we've had has been continuing to melt off quite quickly. The roads were dry again by dinner time last night after an overnight snow.

Todays photo is from a trip up to Copper Mountain last March with my brother and his family. They are true winter lovers, and we had such a great time!