Even at a place as beautiful as the Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak dominates the scenery in Colorado Springs. We've had a big chunk of our cloudy day budget for the year in the last week, and this shot was one of those weird days when the south side of town was sunny, and the north was foggy / cloudy. I got this shot of the peak right at the break point. I don't remember snow showing up in August (and of course it is gone now), so this was also some evidence it really happened.
The news is talking about dates and schedules for our withdrawal from Iraq, but at Fort Carson, we still have more deployments happening, including the 2nd BCT of the 4th ID (approximately 3800 troops?) beginning to ship out as early as next week. I know it is selfish of me, but I'd really like to see this thing wind down. Yesterday I wrote an offer for a client whose son is being deployed. He is so close in age to that of my own kids, and I'm sure it will all be fine, but I know he'll be missed by his new wife and extended family while he is gone.

Garden of the Gods is probably the most popular tourist destination in Colorado Springs. For one, it is a free city park, which really helps. For another, it is amazingly beautiful, and while it can't be seen from 100 miles away like Pikes Peak, it is pretty spectacular. This morning after the 5:30 dialysis run with my mother-in-law, I went over and took some morning shots. The sunrise did not quite cooperate like I had hoped, but I got some nice shots I'll share over the next few weeks. The one above is from the Mesa overlook, not inside the park, but gives a nice teaser of what is inside.

I'm a little ashamed to admit I have not been there this early in the morning before. It was so peaceful, hardly any people, just the sounds of the birds (the pigeons cooing among the rocks is a little eerie), and lots of little rabbits running around. I saw some deer, a couple of nice bucks actually, but not from too close up. I guess we all forget to be tourists in our home towns sometimes.

I've been working on a pre-foreclosure / short sale purchase for a while now for some folks, and thought it would be worth sharing a couple of things.

#1, it is SUCH a slow process, no wonder there are still so many out there. We've been in "hurry up and wait" mode for almost 45 days, only to find out yesterday that another offer had just come in (and this only was discovered after more followup phone calls). #2 There is ZERO communication. The un-answered phone calls and un-replied to emails make you crazy. While some of this could be unique to the property itself (I have had some better luck with true bank owned property), all the fingers in the pot really make this an agonizing process. We'll see how we do, the clock has almost run out finally.

The rain has stopped here in Colorado Springs, but you still can't see the Peak, so I thought I'd throw in another sunrise shot from earlier this past week.
I watched the Olympics women's Marathon yesterday, and it reminded me that the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon was supposed to be this weekend. I say supposed to be, because they had to call the Ascent off half way through it, after a combination of lightening and snow made it too unsafe. To run 26 miles on a pancake flat course is amazing. To run it up and down a 14,110 ft mountain is almost incomprehensible, especially in bad weather!

It has been a dry summer in Colorado, but that has all changed this week. I hope the August rain we are having extends the wildflower season a bit, and keeps us green longer into the fall. The Columbine (shown above) like it a bit wetter. It was downright gloomy out this yesterday and again this morning. It was raining nicely though, and that feels good after the dry we have had.
The new unemployment reports are out, and are showing the economy, while weak, is not completely tanked, with unemployment for the state of Colorado at 5.2%, but locally in Colorado Springs up to 6.1%. There have been a couple of bright spots, and ironically they center around energy. The western slope (Grand Junction being the landmark) is gearing up for more oil drilling and oil shale extraction. A Danish company (Vestas) has announced a new facility north of Denver to make wind generators, hopefully to be installed on the eastern plains. I'm sure at least some of the "Pickens Plan" gets done here, it makes a lot of sense, and doesn't really affect the wheat farmers on the eastern plains very much.
As the Iraq war winds down and housing picks back, I think we'll be fine here in the Springs. We have a lot of people still deployed from here, and Fort Carson and the City of Colorado Springs is ready for them to come home!
This will be an interesting next couple of weeks in the Denver area. The Democratic National Convention is a pretty big deal, and they've already decided to close I25 through downtown on the 28th of August, during Obama's acceptance speech. While logistically it makes some sense, that will be a frustrating experience for those who did not get the word. We use that road a lot getting to Ft Collins and back to see our daughter, and it is always pretty packed.

Tonight the snow level is supposed to drop to 10,000 feet, and the rain and clouds we have here today make me believe it. We were up in Summit County on Monday, and it turns out we also got a dusting in the high country last Sunday night. This shot is from the top of Mount Royal, above Frisco, and is of Grays and Torreys peaks, both 14ers on the Continental Divide.
We try and get away just before school starts every year for my wife's birthday, and it is usually Breckenridge, with activities spread around Summit County. We aren't "hard core" hikers, but thought we'd try the Mount Royal trail, which you can pick up in downtown Frisco. The views were well worth it, and I'll try and mix in a smattering of photos over the next week or so. More hardcore hikers consider this a tourist hike, at only 3 hours round trip, but it is quite steep, and different sources call this either 1350 or 1600 ft of vertical and frankly I can still feel it today, so maybe I'm really just a tourist anyway? We really enjoyed it, and after all, what is wrong with being a tourist, even in your own back yard? For me, this is part of why we live here.
One of my favorite sayings is this: When you buy a house in Colorado Springs, you get the rest of the state of Colorado as your back yard!

Not every day is gorgeous here in Colorado Springs, but almost every day is. Today's photo is of Pikes Peak, taken again from Palmer Park a couple of mornings ago. The forecast is for cooler, wet weather, and maybe even snow above 10,000 feet (Pikes Peak is 14,110). It will be nice to have that coat of white on the top again. Generally it is gone from June 1 to September 1, but it varies year by year, and some years we have had snow visible in July. With changing weather and lighting, it is easy to see why most of us like to soak in this view more than once a day, it is captivating!

Yesterday was primary election voting day. In Colorado Springs, that is usually most important for the Republican Party, but is very important for everyone, because in many cases, the Republican candidate runs unopposed in November. This year was no exception, with several key races being decided. I was particularly pleased to Douglas Bruce voted out. His "cut spending until you bleed" approach to public funding and his "in your face" style of politics is not conducive to keeping Colorado growing and a great place to live, and his replacement I think will do a much better job without being wasteful. It was also interesting to see a 3 way race for the congressional seat when the incumbent in running, but I was a little relieved to see Doug Lamborn re-elected, as it seemed like he had done a credible job in his first term, and was not quite deserving of being tossed out on his ear "just because". The DA race was also interesting, because the winner, Dan May, made his last minute decision to run based on an expose' piece on TV, that showed the incumbent drinking heavily at a local pub in the middle of the day, and then getting into a county vehicle and driving away. Not exactly what you expect from the guy who prosecutes drunk drivers.
Todays photo was taken yesterday from Palmer Park, and is a view of Garden of the Gods at sunrise. The red rocks pick up the sun nicely in the morning. It is getting cooler in the mornings (low 50's), the annual cool down toward fall is beginning. I can't believe they are already closing the city outdoor swimming pools, school hasn't even started yet! Whatever your politics, fall is a great time to enjoy Colorado. The cool air, warm sun and blue sky mornings are just glorious!

Downtown Colorado Springs is not huge, but I thought it was extra pretty this morning from the overlook at Palmer Park, so I thought I would share the experience. Now I am not a big "get up with the sunrise" kind of guy, but my mother-in-law needed a ride to dialysis this morning, so I thought I would make the most of it. I'll share more of these over the next couple of weeks. The air was cool (52!) and clear, so I got a bunch of shots.
Palmer Park is a very popular mountain biking, hiking and overall "enjoy the outdoors" kind of park, right in the middle of town. For dog lovers, there is an off leash area too, and there are several more traditional park "developed areas". It includes a large area of bluffs (known as "Austin's Bluffs" at one time, hence the name for one of our major streets), canyons, and great views. Because of the high ground and central location, it makes an ideal overlook to the whole region, and there are enough trails to wear you out. I stuck to taking pictures today!

Today is one of the 65 cloudy days a year we get in Colorado Springs, as opposed to the 300 days of sun. I think we only just broke 70 degrees for a few minutes before the cloud cover and some rain dropped us back into the 60's. After all the hot and dry weather this summer, it is a wonderful break, and we have had some really nice evening rain to boot.
In about a month, we'll start to see the leaves start turning in the high country. It is hard to accept that summer is almost over, but my wife the teacher will be back in her classroom in 1 week (who am I kidding, she is there right now, even though she doesn't have to be!). This is when we usually take a couple of days for our last summer getaway, and try to get one more group gathering on the back deck for a "farewell to summer" party, either here or at friends houses. This fall should be a little different, with Holly only teaching mornings, hopefully it will be busier business wise as well.
I thought I'd mention a little snooping I've done on the foreclosure front. This past month's new filings were substantially lower than last month (down 22.3%), and there are some questions in my mind as to what is happening. Our foreclosure laws changed at the first of the year, in that the owners "redemption period" was eliminated, and instead the time before sale was increased. In December, many foreclosures were filed, followed by a slower January. This months foreclosures was the lowest number we have seen since January, and leads me to believe we have bottomed out here. This follows the trend we've been observing of foreclosure and short sales as a percentage of our sales dropping from the mid 20's to under 20% for the last couple of months.

The Colorado Springs home rental market made for an interesting conversation with the property manager for our north office today. We have separate property managers for each office, and our north office is just restarting the program, but he manages about 150 units, including 75 single family homes at present, and so I thought he would be a good data point.
Lots of my prospective clients ask about rentals, in case they can't find the right house, or want to build, and so the topic is pretty current. I was very surpised when he told me he does not have a single vacancy at the moment, and that all of his rentals are gone within 2-3 weeks of getting them. He also indicated that rental prices and terms have firmed up considerably. 0% vacancy?!
Being the numbers guy that I am, I did a quick check of our MLS bulletin board of single family rentals, and found there were only 593 "For Rent" properties posted, with an average rent of just over $1300 per month. That is approximately 8.9% of the total active listing inventory. I thought I would check a couple of the more popular areas (Briargate and Northgate) just to see what the numbers looked like there. There were 81 single family properties, with an average rent of just over $1600/mo. This was 10.2% of the active listing inventory. In fairness, we have a lot of new construction available in those areas right now, so the ratios are probably a bit skewed, but that did not seem like very many to me. There were 42 properties reported as being leased during July in that area, compared with 315 for the whole area.
Of course the rental inventory is very different from the listing inventory, in that a much larger piece of it is not listed or managed by an agent, but is offered by the owner, but I thought it was an interesting thing that the ones our north office property manager had were all rented right now. Another sign the market is turning here?

Colorado Springs July 08 real estate sale data is not official yet, but here is the preliminary data:

Single Family Home Sales 887 units, down 14% from last July

Median Price, $223,900, down 1.4% from last July, but up for the 6th month in a row

Average Price, $252,644, down 7.9% from last July, and down slightly from last month

Inventory 6600 units for sale, down 6.6% from last July

These figures show a mixed bag, with some recovery trends beginning to show, but the overall picture has not improved quite yet. Is it the eye of the storm, with more bad news yet to come, or is it a "flat spot" at the bottom of the curve, about to trend back up? Time will tell, but my hunch is with the flat spot theory. Foreclosure filings dropped last month, and it appears that new building permits are about to turn around as well.

Like numbers? The Sales Data Trends link on the right side of this blog has up to date data on sales trends and interesting ratios and graphs, updated regularly as data is released.

The heat wave is finally over after a week in the 90's (though we never really got there in Briargate some days)! What a gorgeous day today is. While even the hottest days have started off nice, I'm ready for more normal weather, and maybe some real afternoon thunderstorms again!

It's been a long hot week here in Colorado Springs. For those of you who read this regularly, you've probably noticed I'm not a fan of hot weather, and I think we set some records, yesterday they were talking 96 or something. It actually was bearable if you weren't directly in the sun, and we had some breeze and clouds off and on to break it up a little. The break starts tomorrow, and we really should already be past the peak of the heat of summer now. We need some more rain!
The senior open winds up today. I don't how they are going to top having a black bear on the golf course on Friday. We (my wife and I) saw a bear on the course once at Patty Jewett, downtown. The Broadmoor is so up against the foothills, frankly it is less of a surprise, but with such large crowd, it made an impression. Bears are very common in the national forest, and they come down to vary their diets sometimes. With the hot dry weather, they are probably noticing the green grass on the course, and figure there must be some berries around!
Real estate sales statistics aren't out yet for July, but preliminary figures are encouraging, with prices up slightly, and unsold inventory down. Sales were also down, but the percentage difference from the prior year was less. I spent a lot of time in model homes this week, and the models seems pretty busy. It was a productive week, with a closing, another under contract yesterday, and maybe an offer coming in today on one of my listings?

Yesterday we had a good "frog choking rain" in the middle of town. It did not rain so hard up in Briargate, but it was running almost a foot deep and a car width wide in the gutters near Memorial Park, where I was showing property. The photo above was from my cell phone, and does not really tell the story, but I could not get out to my car for a bit because it was so deep. Some of the side streets were several inches deep, as wide as the road! It is easy to forget how fast the rain can fall sometimes, especially during a dry summer like this one.

We were looking mainly at foreclosures, and I was surprised at a couple of them. For $70,000 they weren't so bad. One we saw I think had been a meth lab house, it smelled SO awful, and there little kids playing in the yard in the house right next door. My sinuses burned for hours afterward. I have not showed in this category for a long time, it was kind of a special situation, we'll see what they decide to do.

Speaking of water, I had to replace our water heater this week. The last one only lasted 9 years, and the one before it only 6. I asked the plumbers about such things, and they seem to think it is the cheaper steel they are using. I noticed it was a lot more expensive this time around, and the new one does not appear to have any features the old one didn't have. I ended up buying the unit at Home Depot, and having a plumber install it, total package $840 (including the required permit from Regional Building), which was $100 - $150 less than the phone quotes I was getting. Maybe next time we go tankless? I still see water heaters from some older homes lasting 15- 20 years, some things they just don't make like they used to.

There is no official date that is considered mid-summer, but if there were, it would have to be about now. The hot and dry spell has continued, and Denver is about to have the most consecutive days above 90 in its history. Because of our elevation, we don't get as many, and even the hot days don't usually stay there as long as they have this week, it was still in the 70's at 10 last night.

Hot weather makes me think of mountains, and one popular mountain town near the Springs is Cripple Creek (shown above). Back we were new to the Springs in the early 90's, one of the big issues was how to save the old gold mining towns. They came up with a scheme to allow gambling in a few of them to see if it would work. Well, Cripple Creek, Central City and Black Hawk were the only 3 towns they chose, and it was to be limited stakes gambling. It worked, for the most part, and started a revival of sorts of these towns. Now the great issue is that they outlawed smoking in the casinos, and the casinos are unhappy because revenue is down. We aren't big gamblers, and if we spend $10 on nickel slot machines once every few years, it about does it. With the economy so poor, I almost laugh when they blame it on the non-smoking thing, I am surprised business is not down more, even tax revenues are down about as much. And then there is $4 gasoline. It is a little drive, and many people are being more careful about how much they are driving these days. Not to offend you smokers out there, but I like the new smoke free environment, and my guess is that when the economy picks up, so will their business. Ironically, the increase in the price of gold is also having an effect on these towns, spurring interest in expanding mining operations. The response? Not sure they want that, since the newer strip mining techniques might make the towns less attractive to gamblers. Go figure.

So how come gas prices haven't started dropping with crude oil prices? If gas prices dropped proportionally to the recent drop in crude, I think we'd be around $3.40 / gallon here, and while that is not exactly a bargain, it is better than the $3.90 or so we are at. I guess it is like interest rates, they go up easier than they go down, and there is not always a lot of rhyme or reason to them.

I thought I'd talk some about home inspections today, as I am in the middle of hashing out agreement on some inspection issues on a house I sold a week or 2 ago.
In Colorado, the contract is very specific about buyers rights when it comes to inspection. If the inspection(s) show anything the buyer does not like, they have 3 options. Either accept it anyway, ask the seller to fix it, or walk away from the deal. When the buyer asks for things to be fixed, the seller does not have to fix it, in which case the buyer either accepts the house as is, or walks away.
I for one do not like to see deals die over inspection issues. I've seen some silly stuff, where the seller feels they don't have to fix things because the buyers got "too good of a deal", or "the prior seller wouldn't fix it for us", or "we didn't care that it leaked, why should they", or "we never got cancer from radon", or "the seller of our house we are buying wouldn't do it" and on and on.
In Colorado Springs, we normally get an ASHI or NAHI certified (not licensed, there is no license for home inspectors here) inspector to do a general inspection. It typically costs between $250 - $300, and the good ones do a very thorough inspection of the mechanical aspects of the property, making sure everything works, that outlets are wired properly, roof, siding and window conditions, etc. Radon is an issue here, we generally recommend radon testing ($100) if there is a basement, if there is no basement it is not as common to test for it. Termite inspections are only done if there is some evidence of wood destroying insects. While they do exist here, termites are not very common. Occasionally a structural inspection is called for if there is evidence of problems found by the general inspection.
There are a couple of principles that I think should make this process more civil, and although not all buyers, sellers or other agents may agree, I wish more would consider it at least.
1. If you see inspection issues before you write the contract, include them in the contract, or at least alert the seller when writing the contract. It is risky to assume the seller will fix something that is obvious and unsatisfactory after the contract is accepted, since they are assuming you are ok with those items that are obvious.
2. The 3 S's, Safe, Sound and Sanitary. If an item falls into one of these categories, it is generally a reasonable inspection item to ask for. Buyers, inspection is not Christmas shopping, you are not looking for ways to improve the property over what it is, or otherwise figure out how to enrich yourself at the sellers expense. Strictly cosmetic items should be off limits, unless they are damage that occurs after contract. I like to think of most of the inspection report as a "honey do list" for the buyer after they close, since all homes have normal maintenance items that are somewhere in the middle of their cycle.
3. The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. If you would not want to buy a house with a leaky water heater, don't ask your buyers to. But vise versa, as a buyer, if you know you can take care of some of the issues easily yourself, you might not want to trouble the seller, who may be stressed out of their minds with other issues.
4. Materiality. Some requests are maybe in a grey area, but if they aren't expensive, and they make the buyer feel more comfortable with the process, in a buyers market like today, the seller should be considering doing the request anyway. It works the other way in a sellers market, the buyer should consider carefully any requests they make that send the seller looking for another buyer.

It has been hot and dry, so I got started in sanding and staining my deck this weekend. I finally broke down and installed the window AC unit in the master yesterday, I have to say that it was nice, given it was still 75 degrees or so at 10 pm last night (that is unusually warm here). It is beautiful, clear and cool (60's) this morning, like it is most mornings in Colorado Springs in the summer.

Finally some real rain! We had a very nice thunderstorm this afternoon, and it feels like more to come this evening, so maybe we'll get back on track for the summer monsoon pattern that most of us love. In addition to the welcome cool off at the end of the day, the rain really greens things back up, and it has been too much of a brown summer so far.

I love mid month closings (actually, in this market, I'll take closings any time of day, any day of the week, any week of the month!). Our closing this morning was only 25 minutes, and on a VA loan no less. I know part of the reason was that the seller had previously signed off, so it was a "buyer only" closing. It was also quick because Sally Shelton, my closer at Peoples Title, is the fastest and best closer in the business. But mid month closings are usually quicker and smoother , because things aren't as hectic, the lenders tend to do a better job getting figures done, everyone is a little more relaxed, everything just seems to go smoother. I was representing the seller, and was a bit sad to see her go, as she and her former room mate had been clients for close to 10 years. The buyer got a great house for the money.

Today's photo is from a thunderstorm last summer, taken in our neighborhood. I love what the clouds do when the storms roll through.

Mortgages are still pretty available, despite all the commotion in the financial markets. Ironically, it might actually bring rates back down if this keeps up (although we are in the low 6's now, which is pretty good). With the stock market at such low numbers, it usually brings money into the bond market, helping rates.
We still have some pretty good programs too. I talk a lot about FHA, because with only 3% down, it goes all the way to $325,000, which buys a pretty decent home here. With 5% down, conventional loans go all the way to $417,000, which even includes some of our nicer new construction areas. And for jumbo loans (over $417,000), Wells Fargo has a program that allows you to combine a smaller 1st mortgage with a purchase money 2nd HELOC that avoids the stiff penalties of going to a true jumbo mortgage (although this is a 20% down program).
Last week we got a briefing on the new Sanctuary in the Pines development in D20 Black Forest. One of the signs that our market may be getting closer to a turnaround is new developments like this. Although prices will be starting in the $600's pretty much for completed homes, these are 2.5 acre wooded lots in D2o, on a community water system, which is a first. I think this one will be a winner.
Another sign that things may be turning around is the supply of "spec" homes keeps shrinking. Last weekend I noticed the list of specs in Cordera in particular was very short. While the overall supply of homes is quite ample, there are definitely pockets where the only choice is start one from scratch. There sure are some great deals out there in resale homes!

This weekend was a great family weekend for us. We celebrated my son's new job, and our other son and his wife came home from the Aspen area to join us, although just for a quick visit. We caught a movie (Hancock, way better than we expected), and even took a drive up to the mountains for a few hours. Movie theater choices are expanding rapidly here, with a new Hollywood Theater already open at Interquest (Northgate area), and another Cinemark (the 3rd) opening this fall, almost across the street. We still go to the Cinemark on Powers or the Chapel Hills Mall theaters, maybe out of habit, maybe because of convenience.

The weather has been really great, but too dry. We really need some rain, but the temps all weekend barely made it to 80, so it was very comfortable, blue sky weather.

Today's photo is of the buffalo grazing in the distance along Highway 9 on the way back from Breck a few weeks ago.

The constant thrashing in the worlds money markets is not helping real estate sales. At least not here in Colorado Springs. Our market is very "housing cost driven", which means that people are sensitive to the monthly payments required to buy a house. When interest rates jump, it has a dampening effect on peoples appetites to buy, because for the same payment, they can afford less. With the stock market already low, and now Fannie Mae (FNMA, Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) both having liquidity problems, it is going to be interesting how liquidity is going to flow into the real estate market so that buyers can still borrow the money to buy homes. We solve that, and the oil crisis, and "then there will be world peace" :-) Currently rates are still in the mid 6's, which we can probably live with, but it was only last month we were still in the 5's, and I miss that already.
It is hot for the next couple of days here. It started pretty nice (ok, gorgeous) this morning, but 90 today and higher tomorrow is what they say. I don't think we hit 80 before noon, but it seemed to be warming up kind of quick over lunch time. Our overnight temps tend to drop 30 or more degrees from the daytime high, so even hot weather like this is pretty bearable, although I am personally more of a cool weather fan.

Short sales and foreclosures were a major topic at this morning's sales meeting. The context? Discourage your sellers from pursuing these routes. The long and "short" (pun intended) of it, is that there are longer term repercussions in terms of damaged credit, inability to own again for a long time, tax liabilities, deficiency judgments, insurance rates, and even job possibilities being affected by these things. If at all possible, don't do it was the message we heard.

What is the best solution when you owe more than your home is worth, and you HAVE to sell? Find a source of credit to fund the shortage that can be paid off over time after the closing. Especially if the shortage is not huge, usually the result will be a happier future.

The weather has been pleasantly cool and even wet the last few days, with the highs around 80. A big warm up is on the way though (94 on Saturday!), I may have to look for another opportunity to go up to Breckenridge, or somewhere else where it will be cooler! Today's photo is from 2 weeks ago, downtown Breckenridge

Colorado Springs has warmed up a bit in the last several days. We may see 90 again today, although yesterday we went hiking between Divide and Cripple Creek, where it was a nice 74 or so. We took the hike to up to Horsethief Falls. It was not much of a water fall anymore (earlier in the Spring it flows much harder), but a very pleasant, shady hike. We tend to take these kinds of hikes on holidays, because it seems so hard to break loose the time otherwise. It was not super crowded, although in the 3 miles up and back we probably saw 20 groups of hikers.

Barack Obama came to town yesterday, and spoke to a select audience at UCCS, aka University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, or CU Springs. Colorado Springs is not normally a big stop on the democratic presidential "train", and it was interesting that he chose to make this stop at this time, since everyone will be in Denver in August for the Democratic National Convention. This is normally viewed as a Republican stronghold, but who knows how this next election will go? He sure picked the right place to talk about increasing the size of the Army and Marines, although he did not mention the Air Force.

It was great to get some rain yesterday. It never really got very hot, and the rain was very refreshing and much needed. Maybe the wildflowers will finally come out. Today is supposed to be pretty nice, and maybe even some more rain before a scorching hot weekend. I don't think we have actually really gotten to 90 degrees yet, but Sunday is supposed to get to 94!

Today's photo is from Snowmass, taken last June.

Independence Day, 4th of July, whichever you want to call it, it is a great holiday in Colorado Springs. Some of the surrounding small communities still have little parades with kids on bikes and toddlers in wagons. The "big show" in Colorado Springs proper is the Memorial Park celebration, complete with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra free concert, and a fireworks display that opens with a battery of howitzers from Fort Carson, as part of the 1812 Overture. Other area fireworks displays are at the Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, Palmer Lake, and Manitou Springs (though I heard they were cutting our fireworks for fire danger reasons this year). We will be spending the 4th with a large group of old friends.
Part of the reason this is such a big holiday here, is the number of active duty and former military personnel. One study puts that number at close to 21% of the adult population. Certainly with 5 military bases (Air Force Academy, Peterson Air Force Base, Shriever Air Force Base, Fort Carson, and NORAD), Colorado Springs has a strong patriotic feel to it.
With the oil crisis, continued problems in Iraq, a housing and automotive recession, rising unemployment, the stock market tanking, fires burning all over the West (especially California), floods in the Midwest, and on and on, it is easy to forget how great life really is, especially for us in the United States, and even more especially for us in Colorado Springs. I'm hoping to make this 4th of July Thanksgiving Day, in addition to Independence Day.
Today's photo is from late last June at Independence Pass, just east of Aspen. I tend to associate it with the 4th of July weekend, because we spent the 4th up in Snowmass with our son a few years ago, and really enjoyed the scenic beauty of this magnificent pass over Highway 82. It is closed for 1/2 the year because of snow, and when it opens, takes an hour off the drive from the Springs to Aspen / Snowmass.

Official July statistics for Colorado Springs real estate sales won't be out until after the 4th of July holiday, but preliminary figures show that while our sales continue to be anemic, some good news has started with prices and supply. Prices have been rebounding since December, and both the average and the mean price have increased to $256,824 and $222,000 respectively. The percentage of distressed units has dropped sharply, to 17.65%, from a high of 26% in February. It remains to be seen whether this is a trend or a blip, but I have felt for a while now that the percentage of distressed units has been drag on prices. The inventory of unsold homes has dropped almost 4% since last June.

We have some new clouds on the economic horizon, with Hewlett Packard announcing they will be shifting employees from some Colorado Springs operations to New Mexico starting next year, and to Ft Collins. The Fort Collins folks may take the transfers, as there are some great lifestyle issues to be had in Ft Collins, but the New Mexico transfers will not be as popular. We'll see how it shakes out. By then we should be seeing more returning troops to Ft Carson from Iraq.

Today's photo is the Blue River from downtown Breckenridge along the river walk. Today will be the hottest day of the year so far, around 90, and the I always think of the cool mountain air and ice cold waters of the mountains on days like this.

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.

It has been really dry in Colorado Springs this spring. The little bit of moisture we got on Wednesday was the first in a while, it wasn't much, and by late afternoon it was sunny and nice. The saying is that we have 300 days of sun. The other 65 are when your friends, family or other important visitors or outdoor plans are scheduled. The forecast is warming up, we should see mid 80's over the next several days. You can see from today's photo (taken yesterday at the Shops at Briargate), the snowpack on Pikes Peak is starting to fade. With some really warm weather on tap, it could be gone within the week, which is pretty normal. It comes back in September, when we usually get the first dusting again. This morning's Gazette rainfall statistics reported month to date rain as only .4", compared to a normal May of 2.23". Year to date, we are at less than 50% of normal. It only takes one "frog choking rain" to catch that up sometimes, but these are some low numbers. Good thing most of our water actually comes from the mountains further west. We had a good winter for snow, so we won't be short on water, at least this year.

Today is graduation day at the Air Force Academy. Hopefully the skies will clear (it was raining finally this morning!), or the Thunderbirds may not be able to do their thing. I included the link so you can enjoy some of what they offer, even though I probably won't be getting any photos today. With President Bush delivering the commencement address, it would be a shame if they could not fly.
This week also is approximately the 1 year anniversary of this blog, and I was surprised to see how many postings there were (170 or so?) To celebrate, I added a new link on this site to a Google Docs spreadsheet that I think many will find useful. It is a spread sheet and collection of charts that show trends in Colorado Springs home sales data. The data is derived from the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors web site, but includes some additional calculations and statistics. There is a little bug in the software, so the charts are reading right to left instead of left to right, but this should be pretty current all the time, and the data portion works well. With luck Google may get the left to right thing going too! This a permanent link on the menu on the right side of the blog. I'll continue to discuss monthly statistics on the blog, but I think this will be a nice addition to help put things in perspective.
One thing that I noticed on the Months Supply trend, is that while we are doing better than the nation as a whole (8 months supply vs 10.5 months for the rest of the country), we are a long way from the good old days of the summer of 2005, when it was only 3 months! Thankfully, prices have not moved too much, and once we get out of these doldrums, I think will recover fine.

When you live in Colorado Springs, you don't have to use up a LOT of gas to get out and have some fun in the outdoors. Yesterday we took part of our holiday weekend to do a hike up at the Florissant Fossil beds National Monument, and then stopped in Cripple Creek for a little while before heading back. Both are around a 1 hour drive from here.

The weather was great. While it was in the low 80's in the Springs, it was in the low 60's in Cripple Creek. We got plenty of sun and exercice, and even managed to catch a shot of some deer on one one the trails.

How much cheaper is it to live in Colorado Springs than other towns? This mornings Gazette covered a story from the Council for Community and Economic Research showing Colorado Springs as 7.9% below the national average for cost of living. While we have always been a little below the national average, it is usually less than 5% below, so I was a little curious what they attributed it to. Turns out our gas prices did not jump quite as fast as some other areas of the country during the 1st quarter, and that was a big item. I went to Bankrate.com to see their cost of living calculator, and did a quick compare with San Bernardino California (we get a lot of Californians who come here to get away from the crowds. It was fascinating to see that, at least in this analysis, they indicate a family making $80,000 a year there, can live just as well for less than $60,000 here. The cost of housing seems to make a big difference. While I am not convinced the differences are quite THAT much, I know that many who come here find they can live better, for less.

Today's photo is from the green belt above the Old Farm area, where I just listed a 1900 sf 4bed 3 bath home for $219,900 .

Colorado gets its share of extreme weather, but the tornado episode yesterday in Windsor Colorado was pretty bad. My deepest sympathy to those affected, including the family of the person who was killed. My own daughter was at work in Ft Collins, less than 10 miles from where it happened, and she said the whole building shook, the lights were swinging, and it was very scary. She is filling in for someone who is on pregnancy leave for the summer, and the girl she filled in for had the windows blown out of her house. Thankfully she and the baby were ok.
Colorado Springs does not typically get tornadoes (neither does Ft Collins for that matter), because we are pretty close to the mountains, and they tend to form further onto the eastern plains. Hail, lightening, thunder, big winds yes, but not tornadoes. In 17 years of living here, we have not had one in the city yet that I can recall, although there have been some out east. It has been a cool and breezy last couple of days, but Memorial Day weekend is expected to be very nice.
I made a couple of changes to the blog that I hope you find useful. You can now subscribe by email, so that if you prefer email as an access method it is there (you have always been able to use the RSS feed). The other change is that we eliminated the Snapshots preview. This was a harder decision, but my own testing of the site seemed to indicate it could be annoying almost as often as it was helpful. If you have an opinion you'd like to share on that one, I'd love to hear from you!

Homes for sale in Colorado Springs have some interesting differences from other areas of the country, and I thought I would describe some of them here.
#1. Colorado Springs homes usually have some kind of usable basement, and as a result, square footage published on most real estate web sites, and by the Realtors, includes the basement. This can make a big difference if you are coming from, say California, where earthquakes preclude such things. A 2,000 square foot ranch style home here will like have an additional 2000 square foot basement, often finished, making it a 4,000 square foot home. Also, our dry climate makes the space much more usable than say, the Midwest, where summer humidity can make for mold problems in basements. Our MLS is set up so we can search based on total square footage, finished square footage or "above grade" square footage, but most of the public access sites do not have this ability, so it can be confusing sometimes.
#2. Colorado Springs homes run on the newer side. Almost half (47.7%) of the 6,342 homes for sale here (as of May 22, 2008) were built since 1998. Only 25.9% were built prior to 1978. So our homes tend to be fairly current with energy code and building technologies, such as roofing materials, windows, etc.
#3 Colorado Springs homes use different materials than some other areas. Brick is a little pricier here, so stucco and stone, and Masonite type siding products tend to be more popular. Painted siding is not a favorite from a maintenance standpoint, as our strong sun and wind tends to require repainting every 5 years or so, but it is still used a lot because of the lower cost. We do not see as much vinyl siding as you’d expect. I have never heard a real good discussion on this, but it may have to do with hail and wind vulnerability.
#4 Our yards tend to have fewer and smaller trees than some other areas of the country. This is generally because of climate issues (it takes a lot more time and effort to get them to grow in our dry climate), but also because of soil conditions. Many areas have poor soil, and without soil augmentation and lots of TLC, the trees just don’t want to grow. We plant them with every new house, but after 5 years, they are often barely beyond saplings still. Sometimes trees are deliberately left out to preserve a Pikes Peak view. My home is 15 years old, and we have some sizable trees now.
#5 Most (53.8% currently) of our homes offer (or claim to offer!) a view of the mountains. The rest often still have a great view from the neighborhood for an evening walk, but not from the house itself.

Summer has arrived in Colorado Springs. Not on the calendar, but on the thermometer. We are in a balmy 80 plus degree pattern at the moment, which would be a little nicer if we were getting our normal afternoon thunderstorms, which we are not. It is getting dry out there, we could really use some rain.

Memorial Day weekend is this week! School is about to get out (my teacher wife is counting the days), and everyone is gearing up for graduations, weddings, and lots of outdoor grilling. Air Force Academy graduation is the Wednesday after Memorial Day, and along with the Thunderbirds air show, President Bush will be speaking. I am hoping to get some decent photos of the Thunderbirds, I'll share them here if I do. Graduation week is usually a tough one for people who need hotel rooms, as the whole town kind of fills up for the graduation and the ensuing spate of weddings that take place in the days that follow.

This is usually when the high mountain passes of Trail Ridge Road at Rocky Mountain National Park, and Independence Pass open, although rumor is that Independence is a week or more behind schedule due to the huge amount of snow they had this winter and spring. The photo is of my son Daniel from 3 summers ago, 4th of July week at Independence Pass.

We really don't visit downtown Colorado Springs often enough. Other than an occasional closing at a downtown title company, or a performance at the Pikes Peak Center, we just don't go that much. Yesterday we were in the mood for a little walk, and decided to go downtown to Monument Vally Park for our exercise. It was so pleasant! Things are greening up nicely, and Monument Creek was flowing, albeit a little low for May. We finished the outing with a light supper at the Phantom Canyon Brewing Company, our favorite brewpub in the area. If you go, you have to try the smoked Gouda cheese soup. It's awesome!

This crane was looking for some fish I think. Rumor is he hangs out daily. The buildings are at Colorado College, a great little liberal arts school of about 3,000 students that borders the park. they are most famous for their national ranked hockey team, and were all set up for graduation, and the architecture is very interesting. Our daughters used to skate at their ice rink, and it brough back some great memories of walking in the park in the early morning while they practiced.

After 16 years of selling real estate in Colorado Springs, I am amazed regularly at how much I still am learning. This morning we had a RE/MAX Properties North office “marketing forum” meeting, and one of the regular topics is “lessons learned”. There were a couple of pretty good ones that I thought I would share here:
1. If a VA appraisal comes in low, the underwriter at the lender actually has a 3% discretionary buffer.
2. If a house is zoned for horses, has horses on the property, and is surrounded by horse properties, it does not mean that you can actually run horses. This is because the well permit may still not allow it, and the state water board can come in after the fact and enforce the well permit restrictions. Standard “household” well permits do NOT allow horses. The state Division of Water Resources has a look up facility for permits.
3. Habitat for Humanity has a new project in school district 20 near Woodmen and Tutt Blvd that is going to be a small area of homes that will actually be built by contractors, not by the homeowners. The first homes are in process. See http://www.pikespeakhabitat.org
for more information about this great work, how to qualify for a Habitat home, and the new homes they are going to build.
4. Habitat runs a facility called the ReStore that sounds like sort of a Goodwill store for building materials. This could be a great source for people who are remodeling on a budget. One our agents mentioned buying $1800 worth of brand new windows for $350. Proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity operations. They also take donations of leftover building materials and used materials.

What does the average house in Colorado Springs look like? According to last months sales statistics, it was priced at $239,578, had 2,468 square feet (including the basement), 2,173 were finished. Oh yeah, and it had been for sale for 115 days before getting a contract. I happened to have listed a house this past week that is really close to the averages (although as a brand new listing, it has not been on the market for the average time for sure!). This house, located at 8261 Dolly Madison in the Fairfax area of Briargate, is priced a little below the average at $232,500. It also has a lot of upgrades and updates that are not as common at this price, such as brand new windows, new carpeting, new kitchen floor, new countertops etc, and even has a nice Peak view from the master bedroom. You can view a Virtual Tour here.

The Spring weather has really been nice. It was just a week ago it snowed, but it has been more seasonal all week since, with a little rain mixed with the beautiful sunny mornings we are used to in the summers here. It has been really dry for this time of year, we could use more rain.

Mother's Day weekend is shaping up to be a nice one, with cool and rain on Saturday, but sun all day on Sunday. Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there! We are planning a breakfast out on Sunday morning for ours, and our daughter at CSU in Fort Collins even plans to be here!

Buying a house with little down is still pretty easy in Colorado Springs. It is true that there are some programs that are no longer offered, like the old “80-20” 100% financing, along with “stated” income loans and other “sketchy” financing tools. Conventional financing for 80, 90 and even 95% loan to value has not changed a lot, although conventional programs now cost a little more if your credit score is below 720. But low down payment financing is still pretty readily available and here are some of the ways we currently do it.
1. VA. The Veterans Administration has been guaranteeing loans for active duty and honorably discharged members of the military since after WWII, and with zero down payment. This is particularly attractive for the 1st time homebuyer, since fees are a bit lower with 1st time use.
2. FHA. These are government guaranteed loans, for civilians. This program now goes up to $325,000 loan amount in El Paso County (which covers almost 4000 homes for sale as of 5-6-08, or 2/3 of our market!), requires only 3% down, and can be combined with down payment assistance programs such as CHAFA, gifts from relatives, or even Nehemiah gift down payment assistance programs to make this type of loan possible with as little as $0 (ZERO!) of the borrowers own funds (depending on the program). Moreover, it allows the borrower to make payments as high as 43% of their GROSS income, and does not strictly rely on FICO scores (though a 620 FICO seems to help). This type of loan will likely increase in popularity for a while.
3. My Community loans. These loans can go up to 97% of the purchase, and depending on circumstance can go as low as a 580 credit score. You have to make less than $66,000 as a family to get in on this in El Paso County, and it is designed for lower to mid income levels with OK credit.
4. Flex 97. This is essentially 3% down conventional financing, and with higher FHA loan limits, is not really as popular as it used to be. Still, when you consider that to rent a house for $1500 a month costs almost $4500 to move in to begin with (1st months rent, last months rent, plus deposit), for the little bit extra cash, you may as well own a place, right? And your first payment can be due almost 2 months away depending on when you close.

Need some help to figure out what makes sense for you? Call Dana Hines at Colorado Online Mortgage 719-955-3670 to figure out what program makes the most sense for you!

Preliminary sales figures for April '08 Colorado Springs homes show sales of 773 units, down 13.7% from April of last year. Prices also remain soft, with the average price at $240,497, down 4.8% from last April. Inventory was up, with almost 6200 single family units for sale, still not quite a 6% increase from last April, so not bad overall. Foreclosures are still hurting us - there were 480 last month again. The high end is still taking a beating as well, only 5.6% of our sales (43) were over $500k.
I am working on a bank owned property right now, and it is amazing to me to see how slow they work. We have been waiting over a week just to get a final signed contract so that the buyers can lock in their loan. With service this bad, it is no wonder people have difficulty working out options with their lender, or why it takes so long for the inventory of bank owned homes to clear.

Colorado Springs has a love-hate relationship with school test scores. They love them when the news is good, or when they assist in making a good school decision, and hate them when they are bad. The Gazette released the unofficial 3rd grade reading CSAP test scores in this morning's paper, and as usual, it was a somewhat mixed bag. The top 3 main districts were once again 38 (Lewis Palmer) at 90%, 12 (Cheyenne Mountain) at 89% and 20 (Academy) at 87%. Manitou (14) at 84% and Woodland Park at 84% also did very well, but aren't really very big districts.

I will admit that I am into the numbers a bit. The state average is 70% of 3rd graders are proficient readers. All of the area's main districts were at or above the state average, except Harrison, D2, which was only 59% reading proficient. That means in a class of 25 3rd graders, roughly 10 kids were not proficient readers. That compares with D20, 12 or 38 where the proficiency levels are all around 87- 90% where only 2 or 3 kids would not be proficient readers.
In the larger districts, what is striking, is how much disparity can exist between schools. District 11 (Colorado Springs) has schools ranging from 95% proficient (way to go Madison, huge jump!) to a low of Rogers Elementary school at only 51%. D11 had 12 schools with proficiency above 80%! Harrison D2 saw a high of 85% at Wildflower Elementary, and low of 25% at Monterey Elementary (a huge drop from last year). Interestingly enough, there were only 3 schools above the state average in D2, and 5 that were at or below 50%.
A good friend of ours, Jim Kretchman (who is considered with his wife Mary the co- founder of the Classical Academy in D20 and founders of Preschool Partners) is fond of saying something along the lines of "there is really no such thing as 'the best' school, only 'the best' school for your child". I guess the same can be said about school districts.

Springtime in the Rockies is when summer and winter collide, and that was most apparent in Colorado Springs in the last 24 hours. After a balmy 75 or so yesterday, it is snowing at present. The sun started to come out for a brief interlude this morning, and I caught this shot from our RE/Max Properties offices. Pikes Peak was trying to appear for a moment, but was soon hidden once again by snow. This won't stick, and it has been quite dry, so the moisture is very welcome.

They think yesterday's rate decrease by the Fed might be the last one (maybe this is the last snow for the year?) It might take more than interest rate cuts to get housing back on it's feet.

Just when you think the worst is over, another new wrinkle gets thrown in. Yesterday we had a deal almost crash because the lender announced the property was in a "declining value neighborhood" and they wanted an extra 5% down to do the deal. From what I understand, most of the country has had trouble with soft prices, and such actions just further exacerbate an already difficult climate to do business. Fortunately the buyer could meet the requirement if they choose, and we found another lender that could do the deal (albeit at a higher rate), but it sure makes things more interesting than they really need to be! Government loans are not affected by this (yet!), and this sort of thing may put some pressure on the owners of foreclosure properties to recondition prior to putting them back on the market, instead of the typical "as is, where is" stuff they like to do, so they can qualify them for FHA or VA financing.

How many tourists visit Colorado Springs every year? I would have guessed about 2 million, but the Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak folks (aka Convention and Visitors Bureau) say it is 3 times that, at 6 million. In fact, they say that 2 million visit Garden of the Gods alone. Now I don’t really know how you would count all of that, given that GOG is a free city park, and many of us go, park, hang out or hike, and leave, without every telling anyone we were there, so maybe 2 million is a guess, but still, that is a lot of visitors to a city park in a town of less than 600,000! There are of course some other places that are even more touristy kinds of places, like Seven Falls, the Pikes Peak summit, the Air Force Academy chapel, Cave of the Winds, Manitou Cliff Dwellings, the Cripple Creek casinos, etc that they estimate at no more than 1/3 the traffic that Garden of the Gods sees. And some tourists don’t actually do any of that, and instead just hang out, go downtown, go hiking in the national forest, take day trips to other mountain towns, golf, fish, gamble in Cripple Creek, etc. Colorado Springs began as a resort, and I guess that it is fitting that we still get so many visitors. After all, what better place to visit?
We may have a few extra visitors at the Air Force Academy this year, in part due to President Bush being the keynote speaker at graduation on May 28. The tickets are all gone already :-( The Broadmoor is also hosting the Men's Senior Open this year, which should further boost the visitor count.
Visiting may get easier, or harder soon, depending on who you use for frequent flier miles. I know many people drive to their summer vacations, but flying is pretty important, and I found it so ironic that within a month or so of announcing flights to the Springs and a new maintenance hanger here, Frontier Airlines goes Chapter 11. I have been a fan of Frontier, and I was really saddened by the news. They actually started service as scheduled on April 15, and they say the bankruptcy won’t change anything, but we’ll see. The new merger between Delta and Northwest should prove interesting. It should theoretically open some better routing up for the Springs, but again, we’ll see. United is the “big dog” at the Colorado Springs airport, and despite most of their routes simply going through Denver from here, they will probably continue to be the number 1 carrier.