One of the questions people often ask, is what do things cost in Colorado Springs, and how does that compare with other places? While I can't speak for other places, I thought I'd list a couple of common expenses and what they cost here.
1. Gas - yesterday gas was $2.36 / gal at the King Soopers (Kroger) around the corner from our house
2. Milk - this has been running about the same as gas, around $2.49 / gallon
3. Rent - If you decide to rent (not recommended by this Realtor!), single family homes in reasonable areas start at around $1100, but plan to pay more like $1800 if you want the best school districts or a larger, nicer, newer home.
4. Property taxes - This varies by school district, but in general we figure on 3/4% of the market value as a planning figure. It is often less, for example I have a listing at $295,000 where the taxes are only $1600.
5. Sales Tax - 7.2% in the city of Colorado Springs, but it excludes groceries, labor etc.
6. Utilities - This depends on a lot of factors. Our own tend to average $300 / month for everything except trash service, but that is for a 4200 sf house with a hot tub. Obviously smaller, newer and no hot tub make them lower, but if you keep your house at 75 all winter or water your grass 3 times a day in the summer, it will be higher.

I voted on Thursday! It took an hour and a half to get through the line at the Chapel Hills Mall, but at least it is done now. I am so sick of political ads, pollsters, etc it will be great to have this election thing over with.

With all the money that is being thrown at the banks, you'd think mortgage rates would be at 5% or less right now, but no such luck. In fact rates have actually been rising, and are back up to 7% right now. So much for well intended programs. When the Fed will loan the banks money for 1%, it seems crazy that they turn around and charge 7% to loan it out to someone who qualifies for a mortgage.

We are still having a nice summery stretch of weather here in Colorado Springs. It is a little unusual to stay this nice this long, but you aren't hearing any complaints! The photo above was taken in the Maroon Bells a couple of weeks ago.

Today's paper had an interesting article about graduation rates of Colorado Springs area high schools. It was interesting to me that the districts with the top test scores (12, 38 and 20) also had the highest graduation rates (typically mid 90's). Also, a couple of districts that have typically suffered in the area of test scores also had lower graduation rates (2 and 11). The good news was that almost every district in the city had graduation rates above the national average (except 2 and 11) See complete details at The Gazette.

Speaking of Colorado Springs area schools, many have ballot initiatives, and that brings up the story of when I tried to vote earlier today. The Chapel Hills Mall has early voting (along with lots of other goodies, including a Department of Motor Vehicles office), and since it is right across the street from my office, I thought it would be a quick stop. WRONG! I think everyone in the city had decided to vote today, I've never seen lines like that in a regular polling place! So I grabbed a sample ballot, and figure I'll either go again at a better time, or just vote at my precinct on the 4th.

The ballot itself is huge this year. Part of this is because of something we call TABOR, or the Taxpayers Bil of Rights, that requires all tax (or spending) increases of any kind to be voted on by everyone. It kind of hamstrings the state legislature, and taxes are not popular here, but it makes for some very ugly elections sometimes, with initiatives that are so complicated it would take an hour to vote if you had not prepared in advance. I think I would prefer we let the elected officials do their job, but I suppose if we did that, who knows how high taxes would be. As it is, our taxes here (income, sales and property) are pretty low. I am excited that my youngest kids are voting in their first presidential election this year!

It look like Colorado Springs is going to miss it's annual Halloween snow storm this year. It is one of the more predictable weather events here. Moreover, it looks like we may even be back in the 70's for most of the week, which is even more rare. Don't get me wrong, it is very pleasant to have blue skies, warm temps, and some color still in some of the trees. And while snow season is eagerly awaited in the high country, down here we like to have dry roads to get around on. One of the things we noticed when we first moved here is that the churches and the malls tend to have a lot of indoor activities to compensate for the sometime chilly and snowy weather we get at Halloween. Some of these events may be less well attended this year, and I suspect the door bell to be ringing pretty steady, and the stores will run out of candy, as it is just going to be really nice out!

The new home statistics that came out this week show a continuing brighter picture, although it is still not great. Many of our builders are offering some nice year end incentives to close by 12/31. Once the election is over, it appears to me that we'll have a pickup in activity, as people will get back to living their lives and not worrying about "what if".

Apparently Colorado Springs is not the only place where sales actually increased on a year to year basis last month. The National Association of Realtors, in figures just released today, is now saying that sale of existing homes increased last month over the prior year across the whole country, and especially the West. Seasonally adjusted data shows a 1.4% increase, with a whopping 34.4% in the Western region. When seasonal adjustments are ignored, the West was up 42.9%. The corresponding number for our local market was 9.6% (ignoring new construction and seasonal adjustments), but still, these are very good numbers.

In the story behind the numbers, what seems to be happening is an increased recognition by investors and home buyers alike, that people still need homes. In addition, it has become obvious that the stock market is not any safer than real estate as an investment vehicle (and maybe a whole lot less so), and there is an increasing conviction that prices and interest rates will not stay this low forever, or for that matter, even much longer.

Today's photo was taken last Sunday 10/19 at Parliament Park in Briargate. The leaves really got blown down a lot in the days immediately after this was taken.

Colorado Springs woke up this morning to our first snow of the season. Not on the Peak, on the ground. A balmy 25 degrees out, the wind made it feel a LOT colder. This aspen in front of our house has lost 1/3 of it's leaves, and they had not even turned color yet! But never fear, this is Colorado, and while we probably won't see 70 again this year, we'll be back in the 60's yet this week. The tree below is one of our neighbors, and is not an aspen, although I am not sure what it actually is (maybe a maple of some sort?)
The local employment news was not very good in the Gazette this morning. a gain of only .1%. It is understandable in some ways, given the loss of some good high tech jobs at HP and Intel, as well as the massive contraction of the local residential construction industry, and the continued deployment of many of our troops from Fort Carson. Still, it would be a lot better if we could get back on a bit more of a growth track soon.

Yesterday was probably one of the last "summer like" days of the year in Colorado Springs. A series of cold fronts will likely knock a lot of leaves down soon, and the sprinkler systems are going to have to be drained pretty quick, as a hard freeze is on its way. We'll miss those 70 plus degree days for a while.

Fall is an important home maintenance season. Draining and shutting down the sprinklers is really important here, along with disconnecting any hoses that might be out. Cleaning the gutters while it is still safe and possible is always smart, and of course changing furnace filters and smoke detector batteries are good to take care of as well. The leaf raking and bulb planting are good too, although I think the bulbs do better if planted a little later yet.

Today's photos were taken Sunday at Parliament Park, very near my office and Chapel Hills Mall. It is an extremely popular "senior picture" spot in town, and I could not resist capturing how much the fall color season has now reached us here in the Springs. I am embarrassed to say that while I have driven past this park literally thousands of times, I never stopped for a few photos of my own until yesterday.

My mother-in-law had another surgery this week. The health care system in Colorado Springs is really quite good, we have been very pleased with the care she has received for her many maladies. We are starting to call her the Bionic Grandma, as this was her 3rd joint replacement (hip, knee and now shoulder)! We now have 4 regular hospitals (Penrose Main, Memorial Central, Penrose - St Francis North, and Memorial North), in addition to military hospitals and some specialized care facilities. Memorial North is only 1 1/2 years old, and Penrose - St Francis North is only a couple of months old.
After this week's wild ride in the stock market, interest rates settled back down to 6.5%, and gas prices dropped to $2.85. While that is small consolation to anyone selling stock at the bottom, it is a pleasant side effect for everyone else, even "Joe the Plumber" :-)
Today's photo is of Pikes Peak last Sunday morning, taken from the Shops at Briargate. I love the 1st snows on the Peak.

Colorado Springs is not immune from the craziness in the financial markets right now. Interest rates shot up to 7% yesterday along with the freefall of the stock market. But while all this was going on, gas prices fell almost 20 cents ($2.93!), and it was a gorgeous day, so I guess you have to put things in perspective.
Yesterday was also our office's Luxury Home Tour (this link will show you what we saw), and we saw some really beautiful homes, all in the $600's. They ranged from mountain lodge style homes, to country style rural playgrounds, and it was really fun. Yet another reason I enjoy being a part of RE/MAX Properties.
Maybe the most important thing that happened yesterday was the opening of Arapahoe Basin and Loveland ski areas. Ok, maybe not that important, but still great? Opening day of ski season for me is a while down the road still, but it is always fun to see the first ones open. Generally the conditions are terrible for these openings, and you don't want to scratch your equipment up on the exposed rocks.
I will be glad when the election is over, however it turns out. Last night's presidential debate was much better than the last one, it seemed like the questions were much more interesting, and there was less repetition of the stump speaches, but I'm pretty convinced that whoever wins, very little will really change.
Today's photo is from a couple of weeks ago at Rocky Mountain National Park.

One of the reasons I like working with Colorado Springs local builders is that I like how they think. There is a commitment to community, to the customer and to their suppliers that gives you that "warm fuzzy" feeling you are working with someone who cares. A case in point was a conversation I had yesterday with Lee Bolin, president of Saddletree Homes. We had a lunch engagement we were rescheduling, and in the course of the conversation, he mentioned they were dropping their prices by 5% for a while, essentially to "employee pricing" levels, to ensure continuity of work for his subcontractors and employees. His comment to me that hit me hard was this (paraphrased): When you've got 20 plus years of experience working with the same subs, you have a commitment to their well being as well. That is what I want for my clients. These are tough times for builders, and I respect that kind of commitment.

This was contrasted with a client who called yesterday, to tell me that the large national builder who had built their home had abandoned all responsibility for the covenants and / or HOA for their area, and wouldn't even give them a contact for someone who might be able to help with covenant issues. This builder had closed all of their local operations as soon as the economy softened, along with several others.

Today's photo is of a hike we took Saturday out of Frisco. Hiking in Summit County is really accessible, and there are so many great trails, it is hard to pick one sometimes!

This morning's rate cut by the Fed says that the world banking crisis is far from over. With another stock market crash yesterday, and rate cutting today, they are definitely running scared. Seems like it wasn't very long ago that they were more worried about inflation than recession / depression. Such volatility can't be good for anyone. Speaking of which, it is fascinating by how oil prices could shoot up to such heights, and come back down again so fast, without gasoline prices following suit (although in fairness, we are at $3.30 / gallon here, not great, but not awful). This year will be etched into a lot of people's memories, both for the presidential election, as well as the energy, housing and banking catastrophes.

To add insult to injury, Colorado Springs Utilities is now proposing a rate increase estimated at 23%. This is allegedly because of higher natural gas and coal prices, as well as to cover lost revenue that they had planned on with new customers that never came on line, due to the lack of new homes being built. We currently have some of the lowest utility costs in the country, it will be interesting to see if we keep that position, you'd think other utility providers would have similar problems.

Today's photos are from the Maroon Bells again. The park is surrounded by jagged peaks, some of which are almost as interesting as the actual bells.

The implosion of the financial markets is predictably having at least some impact on the mortgage industry in Colorado Springs, if for no other reason than they both compete for the same funds. Generally when the stock market tanks, interest rates go down, however, this has not happened quite yet, as they are still hovering around 6% despite the Dow closing below 10,000. Mortgage guidelines continue to tighten, however, the new rules are not all unreasonable. They are simply bringing the rules back in line with what have been common sense rules historically. By paying attention to the percentage of income people are making in house payments, and requiring reasonable credit scores and documentation, it is a bit like closing the barn after the horses have already gotten out, but it has to be done. Most of these rules are not that strenuous, and will be good for the market longer term.

I am getting a chuckle (between bouts of nausea) out of the new court fight between CitiGroup and Wells Fargo over Wachovia Bank. Citi made a sweetheart deal with the backing of the FDIC, and Wells figured out it was worth a lot more than that, and moreover did not need federal funds to do it. Now CitiGroup wants a court to award them $60 billion to cover their "lost opportunity" to steal the bank. Is there no shame? As things like this develop after the passing of the "bailout bill", on top of the millions in last minute bonuses at Lehman Brothers before it went under, is it any wonder that people are disgusted with the banking industry in this country?

I am a sucker for mountain scenery. The top photo today is, of course, the famous Maroon Bells, near Aspen. The lower photo is Mount Sopris, taken at Carbondale. Both pictures are from Sunday, October 5, 2008.

Fall is probably my favorite season, in Colorado Springs, or almost anywhere else we go. I love the cooler weather, the color, the lack of crowds (football games excepted of course!), and the general feeling of change in the air. Even the smell of wood smoke at night and of the leaves in the woods when we hike, is special. The smell of apples, cinnimon and other fall food is great too!

We spent our anniversary weekend this year up in the mountains enjoying the fall. It is almost over in some areas, and hasn't hardly even started yet in our own yard. Funny how that works. The weather was such a variety. We left on Friday afternoon with very summery, mid 70's sunny weather. It was kind of cool and wet in Breckenridge where we stayed, and was that way all day Saturday, though it was dry enough for some nice hiking. On Sunday, we expected to wake up to snow, and instead found partly cloudy skies with some nice patches of sun, which followed us all the way to Aspen. Then we ran into snow last night on Independence Pass, coming back from Aspen, a vivid reminder that winter is around the corner.

The 1st shot above was of the golf course in Vail as we drove through yesterday on the way up to Aspen. The 2nd is a stand of aspen up in the Maroon Bells that caught my eye as the classic "aspens again the blue sky" shot. One again, I got lots of photos, and I'll try and share some of them over the next several posts.

Colorado Springs home sales statistics for September 08 aren't official yet, but it looks like we finally have a year to year INCREASE IN UNIT SALES! This is the first time since May of '06 that the year to year figures show an increase (5.6%) Prices are still soft, the average is down 6.3%, but this is really good news for us. We recently have been told the Denver Metro area has been upgraded to Stable from Declining as well, which mean that regionally, the worst is likely over.

The "bailout plan" looks like it is back on. There is a lot at stake, and after the prior fiasco in the House of Representatives, there are high expectations this version will pass. If it does not, we can expect more turmoil in the financial markets for the foreseeable future, and likely see a deepening recession. No one (even in Washington!) wants that.

Today's photo was from Friday 9-26 at Rocky Mountain National Park. It was amazing to be able to be so close to these magnificent elk.

It was a very summery weekend here in the Springs, a great time to enjoy the outdoors. We attended an outdoor wedding up in Parker on Saturday night, which was a gutsy move, but it came off without a hitch. Evenings start to get cooler, along with arriving earlier this time of year, so evening outdoor events start getting a little less common.

I have another closing tomorrow, and need to do a walk though for the client. Standard practice here (and a stipulation in the standard real estate contract) allows the buyer to do a last minute walk through inspection of the property to make sure that inspection issues are complete, the house is appropriately clean and empty, no damage has been done to the property, and utilities are still on. Neither the buyer or the seller will be at closing, the seller moved out several months ago, and the buyer arrives at the end of the week. "Mail Out" closings are pretty common these days, and usually go quite smoothly.

The above video clip is a bit shaky, but it was taken Friday up in Rocky Mountain National Park, where the elk rut is in full swing. The eerie high pitched squeal of elk bugling is repeated often in the fall, and adds to the fun of seeing these magnificent animals "up close and personal".

Rocky Mountain National Park is about 2 1/2 hours away from Colorado Springs. I had not been up there for some time, and yesterday decided to go elk hunting there - with my camera of course. It is surprising to me that we don't go more often. I can't say enough good things about the spectacular scenery, incredibly abundant wildlife, and the serenity of the place. Fall is the absolute perfect time to go. I got so many good photos, I'll spread these out over some time.
I have to say it was nice to get some time away with my cell phone off. With all the wrangling going on in Washington over the "bailout package", it was probably going to be a quiet day anyway!

Normally when I think of fall colors, I think aspen trees. But lately, fields of purple wild flowers have been blooming all over the Colorado Springs area, so I thought I had better get a picture or 2 before they fade. The above shots were taken yesterday at the corner of Union and Briargate Parkway, kitty corner from the new Memorial Hospital north campus. There is a large (100+ acres) open space that eventually is supposed to be a park. For now, it is used primarily by joggers, and in the winter the kids love to sled down the hill if there is enough snow. The building in the center is Academy International Elementary, the designated elementary school for school district 20 's International Baccalaureate (IB) program. It is very popular, one of the more difficult ones to "choice" into, as it is also the neighborhood school for the Summerfield area, an established neighborhood where prices range from the low 300's to the low 400's.

There has been a lot of talk about energy going around these days, locally as well nationally. Colorado Springs rates very high on many national surveys, but we are not the "greenest". There is so much land east of here to dump our waste, that recycling has never really taken off here. In addition, our proximity to the Wyoming coal fields and great rail access has made coal the fuel of choice for producing electricity. And the city is so spread out, with employment centers not being clustered very well, that mass transit is really used mostly by people who don't have cars (with a few exceptions), leaving everyone else in a "one person, one car" commute. Ironically, our historical utility costs are some of the lowest in the country, and our air among the cleanest, so we must be doing something right. There is good opportunity to develop wind energy east of here, and I suspect that wind will be the way the city comes into compliance with the state guidelines of having 10% of our power coming from renewable energy sources by 2020. Also, many of our homes are newer, and the new ones being built are mostly Energy Star rated, so we don't have a lot of homes leaking mass amounts of heat. In addition, our climate makes it easy not to run the furnace or the AC for much of the year, so in that regard, we are naturally blessed with a fairly energy efficient setting. Now if we could just fix all those huge pickup trucks and SUV's we tend to drive to get better mileage..... :-)
Sometimes having a few photos to share is reason enough to write. This was taken last Saturday near Cripple Creek, and you can there is still plenty of green, indicating it was really just the beginning of the color season. There are large stands of aspen with no trace of yellow yet.

We closed on a bank owned home on Friday. Distressed / foreclosures were 23% of the market in Colorado Springs in August. It was actually one of the smoothest foreclosure home deals I've done, but it was still not without it's moments. These deals all use Denver title companies, so if there are any changes to the figures, checks to be written, etc, it is tough getting help during the closing. For some reason the seller never has signed off their paperwork ahead of time either, so we ended up sitting around for 2 hours waiting for the seller to sign so the keys could be given to the buyer (who had help coming to unload her POD). It is hard when you can't count on everyone to execute on time with these, but we got through it, and the buyer got a very good value.
Today is the first day of fall, and what better symbol of fall in Colorado than a herd of elk? We spotted these right off Highway 24 on Saturday, just west of Woodland Park, before Divide. I've only spotted elk along this stretch of road a few times in the 17 years we've lived here, so it was a treat to have them out in the late afternoon sun posing for us. It is supposed to hit 83 today, which is unseasonably warm for this time of year.
What another crazy Bronco win yesterday. This is an interesting team, with the highest scoring offense, and most scored against defense in the league. I like the offense side of that, but the defense is making me crazy. How big a lead can they fritter away? Still, it is good to start the season 3-0.

The fall color season in the mountains above Colorado Springs has begun. I say begun, because while there are stands like the ones shown above, much of the aspen forest is still very green. Unless we get some nasty windy weather, this promises to be a longer color season, which is great! This shot was taken on 9-20-08, right on Highway 67 near Cripple Creek.
We got some other good shots yesterday while we up there, but I am going to share them over the next few days, so stay tuned.
Fall marks a change in the real estate market here as well. There is a kind of seriousness that grows, less "looking for fun", and more focused buying. The inventory shrinks, as less serious sellers leave the market place. Not that activity stops. In fact, the fall months tend to run at about 2/3 the sales rate that the peak summer months run, so it is still a busy season, it just has a different tone to it.
I'm anxious to see how much of a difference this big bailout program will make in business conditions. Ideally, interest rates will stabilize at a lower level, say the mid 5's, and buying activity will pick up as people realize that this is the time to make their move.

"This too shall pass" has become one of my favorite sayings of late. With the housing market being in the tank for going on 2 years, financial markets being in turmoil, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing, gas prices being high, etc, "This too shall pass" seems like a great way to deal with some of the adversity that can't be solved directly.

Personally, I believe the prospects for Colorado Springs are excellent. Very few places have a the combination of being this beautiful, having such a pleasant climate, and yet also having a pretty "going concern" economy. It's a great place to raise kids, or retire, or get started in life. For the physically active, there is about every kind of outdoor recreation opportunity imaginable. For the couch potato, lots of spectator events (not to mention just looking out the window!) And it is pretty affordable, below the national average for cost of living.

Unemployment is a little higher than we'd all like right now, running around 6%, but like I said before, "This too shall pass."

Today's photo is from 2 years ago, taken in our front yard after the first fall snowstorm, just before Halloween. 2006 was an extra tough winter as it turned out, but this was a good illustration of how it can go from fall to winter kind of quick here. It all melted pretty fast, but you can see it was a good pile of snow that fell. Today will be upper 70's and sunny again :-)

On the way back from Falcon this week I got this shot of the pronghorns out on the prairie, just at the turnoff for the soccer fields. They kind of took off all at once, but I liked how they were kind of bunched up nice, and all standing up. Some day they won't be there anymore, as the houses from the Banning Lewis will gradually fill it all in, so I figure I shoot these when I can!
What a wild week already in the money markets. While all this craziness of Lehman Brothers, Merril Lynch and AIG is helping interest rates go down for the moment, I hate to see the whole credit and investment system melting down. The irony is that a year or 2 from now, the banks who are buying up these deals will be even richer than ever.
We are having a great week of early fall, with cool nights and warm sunny days. The leaves should start turning in the high country soon, always a treat for me!

I hate to see a football game that is really decided by bad officiating, but the Bronco win over San Diego yesterday was an exception. After all, it was the Chargers, and the Broncos won! Football season is off to a good start for Colorado Springs fans. Air Force is 3-0 and the Broncos are now 2-0 (although it was a pretty dicey win yesterday). Both teams did put on a good show, 39-38 is a lot of scoring. This blog is not really about football, but that was a game to remember.

The sun is back out after a pretty rainy day on Friday. I have to go check out a house under contract that sprung a leak in the basement. These kinds of things are more common than they should be, in part because often the drainage system for the foundation of a house gets "messed with", either by feeding water to the foundation (such as downspouts that are not tipped back out after mowing), or other such things. I always hate it when there are problems like this, especially since a bank owns this house and they are not very good about getting around to taking care of things.

Today's photo is a symbol of the fall, but was taken over Memorial Day up in Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (about an hour away?) My son in law is a bow hunter, and he actually filled his tag his first day out this year. We have LOTS of deer and elk in the region, though the elk are considerably more shy.

PULLING TOGETHER - Once in a while something really good happens, and I thought I'd share a story from just a couple of weeks ago. We had a contract come in on a listing that was preapproved by GMAC Mortgage. As a reputable lender with a reputable loan officer, this was all good. The first clue we had a problem was when the appraiser called 2 days before closing, wanting access to the house. Not a problem, we got him in, and the loan officer was pretty sure we would close on time. The morning of closing, we were told we would have to delay til the next morning. Then afternoon. Finally, at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, we discovered they had never even finished processing the loan. This is where the good part comes in.

I do all of my closings for my listings at Peoples Title. Sally Shelton, my closer, has been doing my closings for years, and I have always joked about her "saving my bacon" more than once. This ended up being one of those cases. Realizing the lender had completely dropped the ball, Sally suggested we get Peoples Bank involved. They have their own mortgage department, and everyone was still there (GMAC said their staff was no longer available to finish the job). We got the loan transferred, and completely underwritten by Peoples Bank of Colorado Springs, within 3 hours. Although we were so far past banking hours we could no longer close and fund that night, the successful closing was the next business day. The buyer was being deployed to Iraq the following day, so needless to say, there were a lot of happy people as a result of the great job done by Sally Shelton on the closing end, and Sharon Walker (719-548-5148!) on the loan origination end of that one, not to mention to the underwriter who stayed until almost 8pm on a Friday night. It was really good to see a group of people work so hard to make something good happen for both the buyer and the seller. OBTW, GMAC announced it was closing all of it's retail branches the day after we closed.

Todays photo was some columbine up in Breckenridge. I thought flowers were a fitting symbol of the day, 9/11. Everyone remembers where they were when the news came in that day. I was on the way to our monthly sales meeting at a local hotel. The images on the TV screens in the lobby were horrifying, and I still cannot bear to watch the replays of those planes crashing into the World Trade Center.

In the middle of this rancorous election process, I can't help but remember back fondly of those days immediately following 9/11 when we all seemed to pull together for a while.

This weekend's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has had the immediate effect of lowering mortgage interest rates (now closer to 6%), at least here in Colorado Springs. Apparently there has been a risk factor built into rates that has held them higher than they otherwise would have been. Interest rates and gas prices are both very hard for me to get my head around. With the discount rate at 2%, 6.5% mortgage rates did not make so much sense to me. And just like with gas, bad news seems to make them jump, but good news never has the equivalent effect on them going down. If gas prices dropped as much as crude oil has, we'd be at $2.75 - $3 per gallon, or perhaps even less! As it stands, locally we are closer to $3.50 per gallon, which is much better than $4, but not great.

Yesterday was our monthly sales rally, and there were a couple of interesting statistics discussed. The "high end" of our market is really still hurting, with only .6% of sales over $800k. 88% of sales are under $400k so far this year. The "sale to list price" ratio continues at over 97%, indicating that despite rumors of "great deals", the deal is on the asking price, not the result of people coming down huge chunks at the negotiating table.

We wrote a contract for another new build this week, in the Falcon area, northeast of Colorado Springs. The ability to get a nice new home on a 1/2 acre lot in the mid 300's is still very attractive. I think the builder wrote 3 contracts this week on that site.

Fall weather has set in here, it was not even 60 degrees yesterday, though today should be back above 70 at least. Our normal fall pattern is for sunny warm dry days and cool nights, broken up by a series of cold fronts that progressively bring the temperatures lower until our first snow storm, usually by Halloween. Perfect football weather!

With Democratic Party Convention in Denver last week, I guess it was only fitting that John McCain and Sarah Palin would make Colorado Springs one of their first stops after the Republican Convention. They were expecting a big crowd at the airport today as the campaign kicks off in earnest. Enthusiasm for the race seemed to pick up enormously here in Colorado Springs after the Sarah Palin announcement. As I have mentioned previously here, this is a pretty strong Republican stronghold, but Romney and Huckabee seemed to get more enthusiasm than McCain in the primaries. That seems to have changed now.

Statistics for August Colorado Springs home sales are not official yet, but the preliminary figures are not as encouraging as last month. Sales were down 17.7%, and the average price was down a whopping 9.3%. It appears that distressed properties have cast a shadow once again over our market, with 23.3% of the sales being foreclosure and/or short sales.

This years Colorado Springs Balloon Classic was the best I've been to. My grandson Tyler and I headed to Memorial Park, arriving really too early, but getting good parking as a result. The lift off at 7am was really great, the air was still and cool, and it was just perfect! If you have never gone to one these events, it is a "must see". I've included a few more photos than normal, it was hard to pick my favorites with so many colorful images to shoot.

Colorado Springs was not the showcase of the Democratic National Convention, but our near neighbor to the north, Denver, got some nice coverage out of the deal. Mile High is about 1 hour from here, and it is nice knowing that the Denver Broncos NFL football, Avalanche NHL Hockey, Colorado Rockies MLB baseball, and Nuggets NBA teams are all so close, and play in some really world class venues. Whatever your politics, it is fun to have some sports teams to root for.

Speaking of sports, the quintessential Colorado sport, skiing / snowboarding, celebrates a major pre-season milestone this weekend, with the major equipment and pass sales beginning. Lift tickets at most resorts are in the $85 range for one off visits, and season passes or 4 packs are the best way for Colorado residents to beat the high cost of riding. We'll probably go with 4 packs to Copper Mountain this year ($119 for 4 visits), as gas prices and slow real estate sales will be putting a crimp on our families style. Normally a season pass for unlimited riding is $399.

We got a chance to check out the new emergency at Memorial Hospital North last night. My wife apparently hurt herself at the YMCA in a workout, and it flaired up badly on her late last night, so we drove the 1/2 mile to the ER (we could have walked, but she really was not feeling too good :-) It is a beautiful place, and before I even got the car parked in the nearby lot, she was already being treated. If you have to spend the night at the ER, this is the place to do it!

We finally got a foreclosure property under contract yesterday. It took a full week, 3 or 4 rounds of back and forth negotiating, but I think the house will be a good one for this client, and it is by the cleanest foreclosure I've ever shown, with very little that needs doing.

We also had a closing delayed for a day as a result of miscommunication between lender and buyer (not my buyer or a lender I would normally use :-) This could get interesting for the buyer, as he is scheduled to deploy to Iraq next week, and needs to be moving in this weekend. The processing department of your lender can make all the difference between a good purchase experience and a bad one, hopefully this will end up as just a minor inconvenience for the buyer and seller, but it is was another object lesson in using the best lender possible for your loan. I use Dana Hines at Adams Bank for this very reason, she never has these kinds of glitches.

Today's photo is from the top of Copper Mountain this spring, we really enjoy taking the lift up and hiking down, and was the view looking back toward Frisco from Copper.

Apparently the Colorado Springs real estate market is in a little better shape than the rest of the country right now. The housing reports are showing the rest of the country with considerably higher inventory and price cutting, whereas our most recent month indicates falling inventory and firming prices (see the link on the right for trend data). The most interesting figure to me is that Colorado Springs single family homes have just over a 7 month supply, while the rest of the country appears to be over 11.
Magpies are so common here that I sometimes chuckle when visitors ask what they are. These 2 were enjoying the sunrise at Garden of the Gods last week.

Saturday I showed around 20 homes in the Falcon Hills and Woodmen Hills subdivisions near Falcon. The 1/2 - 1 acre lots make this area east of Colorado Springs proper very popular for people have needs for more room, such as dogs, motor homes, or just like space, and are trying to keep the budget under control. In 300'ish range, we saw some very nice homes (and a couple not so nice!). This morning's Gazette had a pretty good article about the commercial growth plans for the Woodmen Road corridor all the way out to Falcon, here is the link: http://www.gazette.com/articles/woodmen_39658___article.html/colorado_property.html

Today's photo was from a couple of weeks back, Cheyenne Mountain at sunrise. Because of NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain has been almost as famous a symbol of Colorado Springs as Pikes Peak.

There really are signs that the Colorado Springs real estate market is on it's way back to normal. I've mentioned that I really am not fond of foreclosures, and today discovered we have fewer than 700 homes, or 10.9% of our active inventory, in the "distressed" category. This is down from closer to 13% at one point, and reflects both the lenders being a bit easier to work with when someone is in trouble, as well as fewer people getting into trouble.
The Danish company Vestas is in the news again, this time announcing they are building a production facility for the towers that go into wind power in Pueblo. They are rapidly becoming a player in the Colorado economy, and in the "new energy" economy as a whole, and I am excited to see our state involved in both the manufacture of these systems as well as the use of them. Many wind towers are expected to be installed in eastern Colorado to create electricity from wind energy (see the Pickens Plan for more details on this idea and what it might mean), where the wind blows pretty steady.
What a great thing to build them in Pueblo, once known as the Steel City, where unemployment has been somewhat high, and many workers who are skilled in working with metal still live. Pueblo is less than an hour south of the Springs, and is where the Colorado State Fair is held every year (it starts today!), also home to one of the largest lakes in the state, Pueblo Reservoir. Many of our TV and radio stations service both the Pueblo and Colorado Springs markets, as Cheyenne Mountain towers can reach both markets.
Today's photo is of the interior of the Garden of the Gods park, with a little foggy haze earlier in the week.

The "kissing camels" is one of the more recognized rock formations at Garden of the Gods. It is also the name of an exclusive gated golf course neighborhood on the top of the Mesa, one of the few you can spend a million dollars in. There are lots of rock formations that look like "something" in the park, and people have all kinds of names for them. I'll never pass the Rorschach tests these present, some named formations are literally color patterns in the rocks that from a certain perspective look like something to somebody.
We found out yesterday that we did NOT get the short sale / foreclosure home we had waited 45 days for. This is par for the course. When banks are involved they tend to make up their own rules, sense of right and wrong and fairness are not in their vocabulary, and heaven forbid they would ever tell you what is really going on. The normal offer protocol (when institutions are NOT involved) is that you submit a written offer with a reasonable deadline (usually 1-3 business days) for acceptance. Within that reasonable deadline, the seller either accepts, counters, or rejects your offer. Thankfully, foreclosures are becoming a smaller percentage of the business again, and while they will be with us for a while, I'm hoping they eventually fade as an old memory.
The Parade of Homes winds down this weekend, along with the Olympics. The most popular homes tend to be the most expensive ones, and I am often asked how many million dollar plus homes actually sell in Colorado Springs. The answer so far this year is 23. Over 1/3 of those were in the southwest area (Broadmoor), but almost an equal number were in the Trilakes / Black Forest areas (neighborhoods such as Cathedral Pines and High Forest Ranch), a change that has take place over the last several years as the northern areas of town have grown in popularity. In the middle of town, University Park has seen more of these, and on the west side, Cedar Heights and Kissing Camels. Afraid they all got away? Don't worry, we have 275 others in that price range :-)

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?