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.

What you can expect when buying distressed properties in Colorado Springs (ie short sales, pre-foreclosures, foreclosures, bank owned, etc) is both more and less than you bargained for. Less money, there are some great deals out there. Less amenities (the sprinklers may not work, the A/C compressor may be gone, along with the stove!). More headaches, angst, problems, etc. And possibly more sweat equity and return on investment. I worked some folks this week in the "under $150" category, and thought I would share a few things.
1. In this price, we did not used to see much at all, and I was pleasantly surprised by both the quantity, and in some cases even the quality of what we saw. There were definitely some "dogs" out there however, with foundation problems, water issues, etc. Houses are not always large in this segment, and almost all of them needed something to be done after closing, generally in the $10k plus category.
2. The water is off in virtually all of bank owned (and other vacant) homes right now, meaning there will be some additional expense for de-winterizing the property, and some nervousness when the water first comes back on for possible leaks. A broken pipe inside the walls can really be a mess to clean up, but if you don't get that sort of thing looked at, the problems can be even bigger.
3. We did not see a lot of badly gutted homes this time, but I have seen them where even the light fixtures are gone, along with appliances, cabinets, etc. On the property they selected, the stove, some cabinets, and most of the carpet was gone.
4. The response time from the bank that owned the house they wrote on was surprisingly quick. Many will tell you right up front that they need several days, and with short sales, it can be weeks. Bank owned properties are usually 2 or 3 round negotiations, and sometimes more.
5. The match between the house and the buyer should be right, and it was gratifying to see that this particular buyer was very knowledgeable on the particular things this house needed, making it a good fit.
6. Out of state banks don't really pay much attention to our contracts, and have all kinds of forms, addendums etc that are not really "buyer friendly", shortening inspection and other contingency deadlines, etc. That does not make them bad, but it is something to be prepared for.
7. Have your lending situation nailed down tight before you start. These kinds of properties don't give much time to "fool around" with getting your loan situated.
8. They like quick closes, so expect to close in 30 days or less, or else wait before you shop.
9. Don't expect to use a government loan (ie VA or FHA) for your financing. Many of these properties are neglected to the point where they will not pass muster for a VA or FHA inspection. Keep some cash on hand for doing the repairs, that is not so easily financed.
10. Don't expect the owner to fix anything. These are pretty much all "as is" deals, and sometimes that will not only mean you have to do the fixes yourself, but in some cases, you mght want to stay in a motel until the fixes are done!

Colorado Springs school districts are something that people ask about a lot, because there are so many of them. The big 8 are Lewis Palmer D38, Academy D20, Colorado Springs D11, Falcon D49, Harrison D2, Cheyenne Mountain D12, Widefield D3, and Fountain Fort Carson D8. In addition, there are charter schools within some of these districts that are like mini-school districts of there own. In D20, The Classical Academy has close to 3,000 students, 3 elementary schools, and a wait list of 6,000 students or so. In D49, there are 2 separate charter school systems just on the classical education theme alone (Rocky Mountain Charter Academy and the new The Imagine Classical Academy). Also in D49, the Banning-Lewis Ranch is building charter schools for neighborhood schools.
So the question can be, where will MY kids go to school. It isn't as simple as it sounds, because as neighborhoods grow, sometimes the neighborhood school is full for certain grades for a while. This has happened many times over the years, especially in D20 and Northeastern D11. It has happened in the past that a family can buy a house across the street from the school, and when they go to enroll, discover their child will be bussed to an overflow school until a space opens up. Usually this is temporary (1 school year or less), but not always. And changing schools is never fun, causing some families to leave the busing situation alone once their child is settled in.
All this to say, that no matter what school DISTRICT your are in, it is a good idea to check out what actual school your child will be attending. It may not be the one the next door!

The end of ski season is always a little sad, but yesterday's closing day at Breckenridge was really great. The antelope were out in numbers in South Park, and I saw a fox practically in the parking lot at the ski area. There was a lot of snow for this being the end of the season, and I was a little sorry I got there as early as I did, because in the warmer weather, it needs a little time to soften up after the freeze / thaw cycle. Coming home to 75 degree weather was nice, but it was a little weird to change into shorts! The view from the top of Wilkerson Pass of the west side of Pikes Peak is always a tempting photo, so here it is again.

Is today the last snow day of the year for Colorado Springs? Technically it was just a 2 hour late start, so not really a true snow day, but as spring progresses, the odds start dropping that we'll see any more of this until next winter. The sun was already coming through when I took this in our back yard this morning. A pretty typical Colorado Springs snow, it does it's thing, and the sun comes back out. 60's and maybe even 70 by the weekend! It really didn't even stick to the roads here in Briargate, but D20 serves a big chunk of Black Forest as well, and the little change in locale seems to make a difference as to how much sticks to the roads, in addition to how much falls to begin with. District 38 is even farther north, and often they will have a late start or cancellation, even when D20 does not. D11, which covers most of the Springs area wise, seldom has to close or have a late start, because it is just enough lower in elevation that it may not even have snowed at all. District 49, which covers the eastern plains as well as part of Black Forest, will often have problems from wind blown snow and visibility, even if the snow is not deep.

My wife is a school teacher in school district 20 (The Classical Academy), and she loves a late start or snow day as much as the kids. Today was a good illustration as to why field trips are tough to schedule though. Her kindergarten class does an annual trip to Garden of the Gods, and it was rescheduled from last week to this past Tuesday, which turned out to be a fantastic day to do it. Today however, would not have been a good one! I guess it encourages living for the day, because you really don't know what tomorrow will bring, especially with our fickle spring weather!

We don't often talk about wildfires and snow in the same day in Colorado Springs, but here we are with a 10,000 acre brush fire burning at Fort Carson, and snow coming down. The fire started yesterday afternoon, and we could see the smoke pretty clearly up north, 20 miles away or so. One air born firefighter was killed when his plane crashed after dumping slurry on the blaze. It is such dangerous work, I am amazed and thankful it doesn't happen more often. Brush fires or grass fires on Fort Carson aren't really that rare (they do some controlled burns to minimize the risk of large fires), but one this size is, and it is already being called the largest in the county's history according to the sheriff.
The warmth of yesterday accompanied by the high winds of spring weather changes undoubtedly contributed to the rapid spread of this one. Thankfully the newly arrived cold and snow should help douse before it gets any bigger, and hopefully no one else gets hurt fighting it. Cold and wet snowy weather are expected to hang around into tomorrow.

It isn't a record, but I think 80 degrees is on the warm side for tax day in Colorado Springs. It was a perfect chance to get the hot tub drained, cleaned a refilled, and the warm dry sun felt very good. Rain and snow are in the forecast for the next couple of days, so we'll enjoy it while we can!
Speaking of tax day, I thought I would plug one of the tax benefits of owning a home. The obvious interest deduction is the one most discussed, but actually the tax free gain on the sale of your home is sometimes more important. This is because the way the tax tables work these days, sometimes using the standard deduction instead of itemizing is the best thing anyway, depending on the situation.
The tax free sale is generally interesting for everyone (current recession excepted), because even when homes are appreciating slowly, in the long run they are still appreciating, and when you sell, it is one of the few things you don't get taxed on (with some limits, of course). A $200,000 house that eventually sells for $250,000 after 5 years or so may have a $50,000 tax free gain on it. While you can often beat the appreciation rate with other investments, you usually cannot beat the leverage allowed (with only 3% down, this could be only a $6,000 investment!), and after taxes, that money is harder to match. Plus you get to live in it the whole time!

Only in Colorado Springs. Yesterday we woke up with snow on the ground from a little overnight snow shower, and I went golfing in 60+ degree weather in the afternoon. I had never played any of the of the military courses here, and had an opportunity to play the Silver Spruce at Peterson AFB. It was very nice, and the air traffic of the Colorado Springs Airport was a fun distraction from time to time. While I did not hit very well, we managed to get 18 holes in on the twilight special, and it was good exercise, if my sore muscles are any measure of that!
Speaking of Peterson (and Shriever), this morning's paper covered the new base housing projects going on at both. Shriever will finally have a couple of hundred homes, and Peterson will end up with around 600 after tearing down some, building some and renovating some.

I have an inspection today, and thought I would share a few notes about such things. In Colorado Springs, home inspectors are not licensed, but I only work with ones that are certified, usually by either ASHI (American Society of Home Inspectors) or NAHI (National Association of Home Inspectors), and that have errors and omissions insurance. I always attend home inspections for my buyers, because I want to hear what is said in case interpretation is needed in negotiating inspection issues. They are time consuming, but it has really helped in the past to be there, so I continue to do it.
Here, a typical home inspection is around $300, plus some additional services if desired, such as radon testing, water flow and/or potability testing (if the home is on a well), and sometimes we have to get additional inspectors involved if there are indications of mold, wood destroying insects (termites), or structural issues. It takes between 1 1/2 and 3 hours usually. I had an out of state client who said the inspector who came out when they sold their home, was only there for 20 minutes. That would be pretty impossible to do a proper job.
Generally radon testing is always a good idea. Radon is suspected as the #2 cause of lung cancer in the US, and while there are differences of opinion as to what the REAL limit should be for radon (the US EPA says 4 Pcl, in Canada they used to say 10, now it is 5), it is best if you know what you have before you just blow this off. Mitigation typically costs around $1,000 here.
We don't often run into mold, and the inspector will usually look for it to determine whether additional inspection or testing is done. The same applies to wood destroying insects. While termites are not very prevalent here, they do show up from time to time, especially in older neighborhoods where the trees have finally grown up.
Structural issues come up from time to time for a couple of reasons. We have some tricky soil conditions here. Sometimes the builder did not do things right, although this is more rare. Often, site drainage has been modified from what the builder had done, for landscaping usually, and it results in water coming in contact with expansive or poorly compacted soil, and this can create problems. We also have some hillside "creep zones", and even mine tunnels under the ground that can also wreak havoc. The areas most likely to have structural issues to watch for are west of I25, but they can happen almost anywhere.
The most common issues that come up on inspection reports are roof problems (previously undetected hail damage), electrical issues (usually homeowner done), furnace cleaning and servicing, bathroom grout issues and site drainage. The purpose of the inspection is really for the buyer to understand the true condition of the house at closing, so that they know what their "honey do" list will look like. The list of things the seller normally takes care of fall into the category of "safe, sound and sanitary". If any of these areas is affected, we typically ask the seller to take care of it. In Colorado, the inspection clause of the real estate contract is one of the most important contingencies. A buyer can terminate the contract for any inspection issue they choose.
Finally, a shameless plug for my favorite home inspector, Randy Morrow at Hawkeye Home Inspections. He does a great job, has inspected hundreds of homes for my clients, and I trust him completely. His number is 719-330-9821, and he does pre-inspections for sellers in addition to "due diligence" homes inspections for buyers.

Colorado Springs has some really nice home available in the 600's. I showed a bunch of them this week, and the one that the buyer selected was close to 5,000 square feet on 2.5 acres, 2 years old, and had WONDERFUL views.
The ones they did not select were very, very nice as well. One was on almost 6 acres in High Forest Ranch, in the trees. One was on 2.5 acres on the golf course in Kings Deer (really great views on that one!). Another was on 2.5 acres just minutes from the Powers shopping corridor. Bottom line, there is great selection in that price range right now! Here is a link to a couple of them:Some Nice $650,000 homes
This particular client was not looking for horse or looser covenanted properties, but this link is to one my listings for $659,900 that has a fantastic set of outbuilding, 5 treed acres, and a very nice 5,000 sf stucco ranch style home. 7115 Wildridge Road
The weather has turned decidedly winter like. After waking up to fog yesterday, it cleared up a bit, followed by rain, then thunder, then snow, and this morning, snow and wind. While it is not snowing a lot (less than an inch fell here), the wind makes it look and feel more like January than April!
This weekend is pretty much the end of ski season, despite great quantities of snow. Breckenridge will remain open until the following weekend, they are still report close to a 7 foot base, with this storm expected to drop another foot or so.

High end home sales in Colorado Springs are taking a disproportional beating in this recession. In doing a little number crunching, I was surprised to discover that while sales overall are still down 19% over last year's disappointing results, sales over $500,000 are down 42.3% from the 1st quarter of '07. While I pick the $500k mark somewhat arbitrarily, the fact is, only 4.4% of our sales exceeded that price in the 1st quarter (it was over 6% last year), so it makes a logical "line in the sand".
Today's "rain and snow" forecast has not shown up, and while it is not out of the question that it still might, it is not surprising if it misses us completely. The weather forecasters in Colorado Springs have one of the most difficult jobs in the world, with so many mountains sitting just west of us, slight changes in pressure make huge differences as to whether we see snow, or sun!

Preliminary Colorado Springs real estate sales data for March show a continued strong buyers market. Here are some of the early statistics. These are obviously subject to revision when the Pikes Peak Association Realtors releases official reports by Monday of next week, but these should be very close:
Sales 722 homes, down 19% from March of '07
Average (Mean) Price $236,514 down 7.2% from March of '07
Inventory 5883 up 3.9% over March of '07
Foreclosure / Short sale transactions represented about 25.6% of sales, and about 11.5% of the existing inventory, down slightly from January and February.
In addition, the Gazette reports this morning that foreclosure filings were 488, a record month. Things have not turned around yet!

Colorado Springs got some good news on the economic front in this morning's Gazette. The 1st was kind of expected, the US Olympic Committee is expected to accept the city's proposal to keep them here for another 25 years. The USOC, the Olympic Training Center, and the associated National Governing Bodies are kind of a big deal, and it is a relief to get this negotiation out of the way.
The 2nd piece of good news was a little surprising, and was tempered by some offsetting news. Job growth was surprisingly strong, and they said we have added 7000 jobs in the last year, or 1.9%. The offsetting news was that unemployment was actually up, to 5.5%. Who knows how good these figures could have been if we were back on a decent pace of home sales and bulding?
This may be a result of "trailing spouses" (my own theory) adding jobhunters to the pool. Many of the military families who come here (although this is not a "military only" issue), and a higher percentage of the less senior ranks, are 2 income families. When a soldier is transferred to Ft Carson (or Peterson AFB, Shriever SFB, Cheyenne Mtn or the Air Force Academy), their spouse often has to seek employment in the local economy, enlarging the potential work force. Ft Carson is in a growth spurt for a while, so employment and unemployment may both continue to grow.

While March is not the prettiest month of the year in Colorado Springs, it does offer some of the greatest variety in the weather, and Pikes Peak is always a bright white against the blue skies. The grass will be brown for a little while yet, although it has been above freezing overnight for at least a few nights, so maybe it will start to green up a little? The weather has taken a decidedly springtime turn, and we have been enjoying the 60+ degree days. I even hit a bucket of golf balls this week, in hopes of actually getting some time to golf this year. Pine Creek Golf course seemed fairly busy.

This shot was taken a block or 2 from the golf course, about a month ago, at the park in front of Mt View Elementary in Pine Creek.

Easter usually marks the beginning of Spring in my mind. Since Daylight Savings, Easter, and the Vernal Equinox all came in the same week this year, I guess we have to believe it is really here, but the yesterday the weather was a little confusing, although a bit typical of Colorado Springs this time of year. We headed to church with a fresh blanket of snow, and a coating of ice on the roads, but today is supposed to back into the 60's. It is so much easier to look at houses, and even to list them, when the snow is gone!
We sometimes joke about "For Sale" signs sprouting with the crocuses, or daffodils, or tulips, depending on the year. This year, I can't say I've seen any flowers sprouting up yet, but the inventory of unsold homes is starting to grow. At 5882 homes for sale as of today, 3-24-08, I am guessing we will break the 6,000 homes mark this week. Nationally, the National Association of REALTORS says that sales of existing homes actually increased in February, and while that did not happen here, I believe it will. With these great interest rates and increasing rents, people have to live somewhere!

While I was skiing yesterday, the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates again. This sure can't hurt. I'd like to think that we are finally where we need to be on such things, but I kind of doubt it. What would help OUR industry is a stable period of mortgage rates in the mid 5's, but they never ask me :-)

The snow was great at Breckenridge. Spring break is starting across the country, and it was busy, with people from about everywhere you can think of. Here in Colorado Springs, spring breaks are staggered a bit, and while CSU is out this week, D20 and Pikes Peak Community College have theirs next week. There was almost 2 feet of new snow in the last week, including 5 inches the night before, so it was great. I really needed the break, I think I had not had a real day off in 2 or 3 weeks. The season only has 1 month left, and this is often my favorite month to ski. We get the most snow in March and April usually, and the temperatures are more comfortable, which makes it twice as good. Spring skiing in the sunshine is a beautiful thing! This week the Colorado legislature decided to make skiing and snowboarding the official sports of the state of Colorado (as if they weren't already without them talking about it), so what better excuse to go could I have?

The photo above was taken last year at Copper Mountain when my brother (on the right) and his family came out for ski vacation.

There are a surprising number of good options for new construction on the eastern plains of Colorado Springs these days. Yesterday we wrote on a spec home in Banning Lewis Ranch, after a survey of neighborhoods that included Forest Meadows, The Gables, Meridian Ranch and Woodmen Hills. We looked at models from Legendary Homes, Capitol Pacific, John Laing, Todays Homes, Richmond Homes, Oakwood Homes and resales by Lennar, Richmond, and others. The decision to go with the Banning Lewis location was based on the location itself, the great lot, and good value of the home. While we won't know if the seller will go for the deal yet, I thought it would be worth noting a few things:
1. Banning Lewis is going to have a lot of pull for many different lifestyles. From those just starting out in home ownership all the way to empty nesters and active retirees, and everyone in between, this place is really going to have it all. The high speed internet access with 10Mbit upload and download speeds on fiber optic is really a great thing for the work at home technology worker, and the clubhouse and pool, tennis courts, trails, parks and school situation is really hard to beat, and is not pie in the sky, they are already in place.
2. The "active lifestyle" communities are really increasing in popularity. Woodmen Hills and Meridian Ranch were on the early side of that movement, and Banning Lewis has just taken it to the next level.
3. The Gables, on the eastern edge of Banning Lewis, has some interesting larger lots, and is very convenient for commuting and shopping.
4. There were fewer spec homes than I have seen in past builder visits, a clue that the builders are not sticking their necks out too far in these challenging business conditions.
5. The foreclosures / short sale homes did not come across as great bargains, although we saw 3 on the Antlers Creek Golf Course in Falcon at Meridian Ranch / Woodmen Hills that looked intriguing.

What an odd week this has been in the financial markets. While everyone who is anyone in Washington says they want lower mortgage rates, whatever they seem to do about it, keeps pushing them up instead of down. While low 6's is not bad by historical standards, we were in the mid 5's only last week, and it makes a difference. Since most people are payment constrained, the difference between 5.5% and 6.5% is the difference between a $300,000 loan and a $269,000 loan, when budgeting roughly $1700 for a PI house payment. At 7.5%, it drops all the way down to $244,000. In our market, that can make a huge difference in the choices a buyer has. I for one am in favor of low interest rates :-)
Tuesday we had our monthly sales meeting, and this month was hosted by the Colorado Springs Country Club. They have a membership drive underway, and I was impressed at how affordable the packages seem to be. They have a family full golf membership (they have an 18 hole golf course, tennis, pool, restaurant, etc) for $9500 initiation plus monthly dues, which by local standards is very cheap (Flying Horse for instance is $38,000 for initiation). We also have a special program whereby we can take our clients for an orientation, and they can receive a voucher for a round of golf! If this sounds good, give me a call (719-590-4768) and we'll set it up.
The other guest presentation was by the Banning Lewis Ranch, and although I have covered this topic before, it once again hit home how important this new development will be in this city. Please give me a call if you'd like a tour of this fantastic new concept community, it is going to be big, really big!

The new FHA loan limits have been announced for the Colorado Springs area, we are now looking at a loan limit of $325,000. This considerably expands purchasing power for those who are down payment constrained, because FHA only requires 3% down. FHA underwriting guidelines have historically been a bit easier to work with as well, the only downside being that that FHA appraisals have been a little pickier on things like pealing paint and other cosmetics. Many bank owned properties will probably NOT be eligible for FHA because of this. I happen to have a couple of listings at that $325,000 mark, as well as one at the $230,000 mark (the old limit was actually $250,000 I believe), so if you visit my web site, you can see the difference in the kind of home that can be financed with FHA.
Don't forget to set you clocks ahead this weekend. It has been pretty light out in the morning these days, and with the time change it will make it a bit easier to show property after people get off work in the afternoon.

Views are kind of important in Colorado Springs. For one thing, you get kind of spoiled when you see what great views are available. It is also sort of mesmerizing to see how the weather, light and angles all come into play into making a great view. View can add value to a home, it for sure adds a lot of pleasure when you have it from your back deck, or through a large picture window
This shot of Pikes Peak was taken from the back deck of one of my new listings in the very north part of Briargate. This is a particularly interesting little section, actually called Kittyhawk, that really predates the rest of Briargate. The lots are a bit bigger, and the trees more mature. It is also affordable. The home this one was taken at is only $325,000, and was pretty heavily updated, while the newer homes surrounding this neighborhood are typically in the upper 300's to low 400's for the same finished square footage. Check out more information here:
http://www.ricksellscolorado.com/Listings/antietam_2621/antietam_2621.htm.
For a virtual tour, try this link:
http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?T=1415025

Normally this is the time of month we report statistics. The Pikes Peak Association of Realtors seems to be a little behind this month, but I'll take a crack at it anyway, even though I have to disclaim this by saying these are not the official numbers. It looks like our inventory of 5571 unsold homes on the MLS is up 7.1% over last February, not so bad. Sales were down 16.9% at 556 homes. The average price of $226,692 was off considerably (11.1%), and was even down from last month. Part of the problem continues to be the volume of foreclosure properties in the mix, with over 26% of the February sales coming from the bank owned / foreclosure / short sale segment. The average price of these homes is considerably less than the overall averages for the city, coming in at only $159,065.
Oh yeah, "Based on information from the Pikes Peak REALTOR Services Corp. ("RSC"), for the period 2-1-08 through 2-29-08. RSC does not guarantee or is in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by RSC may not reflect all real estate activity in the market."

Schizophrenic is the word our pastor used to describe our weather this weekend. As a Texan who now calls the Springs home, he had not yet experienced Rocky Mountain springtime, "when summer and winter collide". It was a record 73 degrees here a yesterday, but it is 25 and snowing at the moment.

I showed a lot of property in the 600's this week, and I thought I would share a couple of observations. While there are a lot of nice homes out there, the truth is that they vary tremendously in terms of the combined package of lot, location, size and quality. Some of the nicest settings have a little drive to offset that. Some of the nicest amenities with the most convenient locations, come without a decent lot. Some of the largest floor plans came without quality in some key areas.

One of the homes I showed is pictured above. At $659,900, it happens to have an exceptional 5 acre treed lot that is zoned for horses, has 3 good sized outbuildings, is located in the close in portion of school district 20, and at around 5,000 square feet is quite large, with lots of rooms for just about everything. Click Here for MLS Details and more Photos or Click here for a virtual tour

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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