We went up to Fort Collins yesterday to celebrate the birthday of our twins. Our daughter, who attends Colorado State University (CSU) came up with the idea of having the celebrations up there this year, and it was really fun. We always enjoy visiting Ft Collins, as the tree lined streets and walking paths are a pleasant reminder of our own college days. The weather tends to be a bit warmer and more humid, but this summer that means greener than home, not all bad. It is a 2 hour drive, which is generally pleasant as long as traffic isn't bad in Denver (which it was not). There are lots of great places to eat, and each of them picked a different place for meals. Several of their friends from high school also go to CSU and are living in Ft Collins for the summer, so it was a reunion of sorts. Today's photo is on the Spring Creek Trail in Fort Collins.

Coming back to Colorado Springs from several days in Breckenridge is probably one of the only times I get mixed feelings about coming home. While it has been in the mid 80's in the Springs all week, it was just around 70 every day up in the mountains. There is still snow on the peaks. The place we stayed, Tannenbaum, is right on the Blue River, just on the south side of town, so the rushing river and its special sound were our constant companions. It was nice, especially for being only 2 hours from home. We really enjoyed the family reunion we had up there.

We usually book our lodging with Ski Country Resorts. They represent lots of different properties, and also rent bikes. Some of our favorite activities include hiking, shopping on Main Street in Breck, taking the chair lift at Copper Mountain and hiking down the mountain, walking along the Blue River, horseback riding, biking, and of course, eating! At night we usually do puzzles, play games, or watch a movie.

The top photo is the Blue River just as it enters the town, and the bottom one are the mountains on the south side of Hoosier Pass.

We are getting ready to have a family reunion of sorts up in Breckenridge this week. Our California relatives that are coming out are suffering some amazingly hot weather, in the hundreds, and are looking forward to some days where it might not even hit 70, although it will be sunny. The temperatures are so much cooler at 10,000 feet than they are even at 7,000, it is really a nice summer break when hot weather hits. We plan to take full advantage of the hiking and biking trails in particular, plus some general R&R.

Today's photo is from a few years back, taken at Crater Lake in the Maroon Bells, near Aspen.

It is nice to see the Colorado Rockies get out of the cellar of the NL West. 8 games out of first is not great, but being 3rd is better than last. Who knows, maybe they make another late season run again?

The thunder storms and rain last night was so nice, and the cool morning air felt very good. There is almost always at least a 30 degree temperature drop overnight from the daytime highs, and that makes our summers very pleasant in Colorado Springs. A little rain should encourage the wildflowers again, which make our meadows very colorful. The old ski town saying, "people come for the winters, but stay for the summers" is really true. I have yet to find anyone who leaves here because they did not enjoy our summers. Today's photo was taken last summer in Snowmass, I believe this is Capitol Peak? My son who lives there is the expert on the peak names, I just thought it was gorgeous!

It was warm in Colorado Springs yesterday, in the upper 80's, but today is much cooler, and not expected to top 80 degrees, so not bad at all. I was surprised it did not rain, it sure acted like it would for a while.

I listed a house yesterday that I thought would be worth talking about. It is in "like new" condition, and for $300,000, is really big at almost 3900 sq ft, with 4 bedrooms plus a study, 4 baths, and a 2 car garage. It has central air, and a decent Peak view from the back deck. Located in Stetson Hills (Falcon school district 49) at 6753 Stockwell Dr, it also has great access to the Powers Shopping corridor and Peterson AFB. It is a large 4 level, and has lots of high ceilings, and actually has 3 separate living areas! The virtual tour and other information should be up soon at our other site, http://www.vwteamhomes.com/.

I am not the only one who listed property lately. Our inventory of available homes has grown already to 6,600 homes, and at this rate, will likely be on par with last years levels. This is sure a great time to buy!

As Colorado Springs largest real estate office, our monthly sales meetings and marketing forums really are good, even though I usually am not a fan of meetings. The RE/MAX Properties Chapel Hills office marketing forum was this morning, and I thought I'd share a few things that were of interest.
We actually had the meeting at the Cordera community center, and had a little briefing about Cordera as a community. In addition, Campbell Homes, one of their featured builders gave a short presentation as well. Cordera is going to be where 1400 homes eventually go, at the moment there are around 200. Cordera is a community oriented neighborhood, meaning that the dues are a little higher ($100 month currently), but they include more, and have lots of community activities. The D20 elementary school, Chinook Trail, is the only one in the region to my knowledge, teaching Mandarin Chinese to the students, and will eventually be joined by a middle school. Their overall emphasis is on world language and culture.
Campbell spoke briefly about their guaranteed delivery date program, which is unique among local builders. They have a 5 1/2 month build schedule, and will actually pay the buyer $100 per day if they miss it. In 10 years, they have not had to write a check, which is really remarkable when you consider how many things can go wrong when a house is being built.
Wells Fargo bank attended the meeting, and gave us the unhappy news that El Paso County conventional loans now all require 10% down minimum, and rates are definitely up sharply this week. My regular lender's quote was 6.5% today. They strongly recommended exploring FHA and VA eligibility for anyone needing a less than 10% down payment program.

Yesterday was a very pleasant day here in the Springs, and I hope the other dads out there had as good a Fathers Day as I did. It was great to be surrounded by my grandkids and kids, grilling steaks on the back deck. Today we woke up to a cool drizzly day, and interest rates took a big jump to 6.75% :-(, so it wasn't as nice (although rain is very welcome right now). Tiger Woods winning the US Open in a sudden death playoff was a consolation at least!
I showed property over the weekend, primarily in Cordera. I really like the community center and pool, and the views are very nice. The location is also extremely convenient for Powers access, great D20 school situation, and you can still build a pretty nice house for under $400k, although I think most are coming in for much more than that. It has the advantage of being a little upscale from Wolf Ranch, or Cumbre Vista, without the higher prices of Flying Horse Ranch.

Fire season is off and running here and across the west already. The 2nd big fire of the year near Ft Carson is still going (although Pinon Canyon is really not super near the post proper, and not visible from here). It was a dry spring, and windier than usual, a bad combination for fires.
Fathers Day is this weekend, and it brings a little pain to realize this is the first Fathers Day since my own dad passed. Although we weren't together for these very often, especially as everyone grew up, I always tried to call him. Call your Dad this weekend if he is still around!

When is the price of a home not really the price of the home? We talk a lot about average prices, appreciation, etc, but we don't always talk about some of the things that go into the data. Take the current situation of prices that are lower than the prior year. Part of the situation is that more houses are selling as foreclosures. Now we all know that banks and distressed owners tend to take less for the home than someone who is living in the home and can continue the payments. Having said that however, lets talk about how the house gets that way. Usually there is an event, whether it is divorce, sickness, layoff, or job transfer that occurs. The house tends to become neglected, goes up for sale in less than perfect shape, and when it doesn't sell, eventually goes vacant, becomes even more neglected, and finally is resold as a foreclosure for substantially less. Whether it is owner occupied or an investment. Money is spent to get it back in shape. This can range from "paint and carpet" to replacing missing appliances and cabinets that somehow "disappear". All this not to mention putting a new lawn in, sprinklers, etc. I have not seen many foreclosures that that did not need at least $5-10k in upgrades to get back up to snuff (not to mention the "sweat equity" stuff related to cleaning things up, etc). This fixup work is not reflected in market statistics, but if it were, the average prices would be higher.
Another other thing that affects prices is the amount of "non price" concessions, such as closing cost assistance. This is often (though certainly not always) done here, as especially VA buyers tend to need some help with this. Closing costs run about 2% of the loan amount, sometimes a little less, but are often reflected in the final selling price.
The other factor that is not discussed much when talking about appreciation, is ongoing improvements to homes. Our neighbor added on to their home, finished the basement, added central air, upgraded windows, repainted the exterior, etc. If they sold it for exactly what they have put into it, it would look like it went up quite a bit, or appreciated. However, while this will statistically show up as appreciation, in reality, they would simply get their money back out from what they put in. A lot of money gets spent at Lowes and Home Depot or with remodelling companies that looks like appreciation on the sales statistics.
Speaking of statistics, May home sales statistics for the Colorado Springs are now final, please see the link on the right for the final numbers, but they are essentially unchanged from the estimates previously posted.

It is good to be back home in Colorado Springs after a visit to the Sacramento area for a graduation this past weekend. The cooler Colorado air felt good (I think it was 100 degrees at the Sacramento Airport yesterday vs 55 when we landed in Denver). There is a big difference between 100 degrees and 85 degrees (our expected high today). It was nice to visit with family, and Auburn, where they live, is very nice, but it was really nice to see our mountains again this morning when we got up. Pikes Peak has lost its snow that had fallen on it last Thursday, but it was pretty gorgeous, nonetheless.
I was struck once again at how much lower the cost of living is here in Colorado Springs, vs California. Even in Auburn, in the hills above Sacramento, homes that would be asking in the 300's and 400's would probably be in the upper 100's or 200's here. We attended a movie, where the matinee was $7.50 (vs $5.50), and gas was $4.40, vs $3.80 here.

May home sales data for Colorodo Springs isn't quite final, but the preliminary figures show another 18.5% decline in sales from last year. Prices rebounded a little from April, but the average and mean price were both down from last May, 6% and 4.6% respectively, at $251,297 and $210,000. For more details, please see the link on the right side of this page, the data is maintained fairly regularly and will include the final numbers when published.

We finally have some moisture! It rained (and hailed a little) during yesterday's thunderstorms, and we are predicted to get even more tonight. Our summers tend be pretty predictable, with glorious blue skies in the mornings, 80+ degrees and thunderstorms in the mid to late afternoon, followed by cool clear evenings in the 50's. May was unusually dry however, and it is a relief to get some rain to green things up. Generally we see fewer than 10 days above 90 degrees here (it has not happened yet this year), and even fewer when it does not drop below 60 at night. Last month, 28.9% of the homes sold had central air, and 29.8% of the homes in our active inventory have it. this is substantially higher than it used to be. In 2000 for example, only 6% of the homes sold indicated they had central air. The rapid rise in popularity of A/C may be a function of global warming, or just continuing "up scaling" of new homes as they are built. Many of our residents come from warmer climates such as Southern California and Texas, where A/C is a must.

The photo today is for a listing I have out in Black Forest. I was out there yesterday to drop off some things, and thought I would take an updated photo. It was so nice, about 5 degrees cooler than in town, and the trees smelled so good! For more information on this beautiful house on 5 acres in school district 20, visit http://www.ricksellscolorado.com/Listings/wildridge_7115/wildridge_7115.htm.

Colorado Springs has a great walking and biking trail network. Yesterday we walked a piece of the Pikes Peak Greenway / Front Range Trail / New Santa Fe Trail from the trailhead near I25 and Woodmen Road. This piece of trail has so many names because so many different entities seem to have jurisdiction, and it covers such a long distance. We only walked a very small piece.
The Trails and Open Space Coalition has been very active here in getting land acquired for trails, and our walk was so pleasant, we found ourselves wondering why we have not done that piece more often, given the trailhead is probably 12 minutes from our house in Briargate. The trail does follow the railroad tracks some, and one train came along that was fairly noisy, but this section that goes north from Woodment Road is really a pleasant walk through the woods along Monument Creek, and we could not even hear the freeway in the distance.