2012 was a great rebound year for Boulder area real estate. Sales were up approximately 23% for the year. The improvement was across the board, each month of the year had more sales than the same month during 2011.
At the end of December we had 30% fewer listings on the market than we did at the same time last year. 34% of those listings are under contract. More inventory will be a key to the continued improvement of the Boulder area market in 2013.
This past Friday Kearney Realty was featured in a cover article in the Daily Camera’s At Home section. The full article can be read by going to this website.
Here are a few excerpts from the article:
Kearney Realty, a trusted name in Boulder real estate for over 20 years, has just announced the opening of their new downtown Boulder offices in the Iron Flats Building at 2400 Spruce Street.
At the same time, the agency is re-organizing into an independent, boutique agency designed to provide a high level of personalized service to real estate buyers and sellers.
“We are taking the knowledge, skills and principles from our decades of experience in Front Range real estate and transforming our team into an independent agency,” says Neil Kearney, owner. “Real estate is a personal experience, and we know that we can serve our clients best by providing personalized service. We like to describe it as a ‘high touch, high tech, five-star customer experience.”
“We bring a real mindset of service to work everyday,” Neil Kearney explains. “We’re not focused on making that one big sale, but rather on developing long-term relationships with our clients. When we provide great service, we know the rest will take care of itself. People today have access to plenty of information on properties for sale, for instance. Our job is to provide the expertise that helps our clients make good decisions based on that information. Each of our full time associates is empowered and engaged to give top quality service based on impeccable ethics, consistent systems, professional development and cutting edge tools.”
“We’re a small agency with a big handle on technology, using all of the most current methods and tools that larger companies employ and bringing great efficiencies to every transaction. As a seller, you want to ensure that your property is marketed in the most effective ways possible. And as a buyer, you want a complete picture of values, neighborhoods, and anything that might impact the desirability of a property. In the end, it’s still about our personal understanding of your needs and how to solve them.”
I am really excited to be starting the year with a new focus on our local personalized brand and an excitement to implement new ideas on how to better serve our clients. I’m also really excited to be working in our new location at 24th and Spruce in the Iron Flats building. As we get settled more I will share more about our new location.
Kearney Realty article 12-28-2012
In looking at homes all the time so I see properties in all conditions. In my area most homes are well kept but only a small percentage of homes I see are “wow” properties. In order to get to the “wow” status a house must be upgraded, decorated and cared for in an integrated way. It is hard to make this happen. Many times I see a home with a beautiful upgraded kitchen but it stands by itself like Yao Ming in an elevator. While the kitchen is beautiful the baseboards are old and beat up. The hall bath is circa 1970’s and the furniture in the living room has nothing to do with the artwork. In a word the house is disjointed.
One way to move your house towards a “wow” is to look at examples of other beautiful homes and pick up ideas that would work where you live. Technology has made this much easier and recently I found Houzz.com and the Houzz app. This site allows you to search through almost 1 million tagged photos of beautiful homes and save your favorites to what they call an Ideabook.
Here is a screenshot from my iPad of my ideabook titled stairway railings. When I searched for stair railings the app returned 51,177 results of beautiful pictures of stairway railings. I can then focus my search for stair railings in a certain metro area. So for example I chose Denver, and that reduced the list of stair railings to 853 photos.
The searches can be even more esoteric. I recently searched for “blue paint” and came up with 109,970 photos. I narrowed it down to blue paint in a home office and came up with 2,449 photos.
On the iPad app, once you choose one photo you can scroll through the photos by swiping your finger. As you look through the photos many of them have little green tags which are links to information on that product. Since I was looking for blue paint I found a wall color I liked, clicked on the green tag and found out what color it was and where to get it. A much better process then going to the paint store and holding up small paint squares. Here are some screen shots showing that process.
I wanted to share this with you because I know I have found it helpful with many applications recently. If you are looking to upgrade your home I would recommend Houzz.com as a great starting place.
The market continues to be unusually strong. Real estate sales in Boulder County were up 29% compared to last November. This is really surprising given the fact that inventory of available homes are down 35% from last year. The combination of these two factors leads to a market filled with tension. Buyers are out ready to buy but there are not many homes to buy. This type of tension is good for sellers and lead to increased prices.
November is not normally known as a prime selling month. But this year we have had a great fall and the sales are more like March than November.
Here are some quick market facts:
For more details view the slideshow below.
We have heard it forever, “real estate is cyclical”. However, when you are in a down cycle it often seems like the rules have changed and it’s never going to improve. That is why most people sell stock when the price is low and buy stock when prices are high. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of the current market swing. The key to this phenomena is to trust the cycles, take a long term view. The secret to taking advantage of cycles is to recognize the cycle early and act before the change is a commonly held belief.
FHFA.gov recently released their third quarter report showing home appreciation across the country. Over the past year, homes on average have increased in value 4%. A positive number is nice to see but it certainly doesn’t erase the tough times homeowners have had across the country. In this report it showed that homes in Boulder County have appreciated 1.9% over the last year (ending September 30th), .92% for the quarter and .83% over the past year.
As a homeowner and real estate investor I know that it feels good to have some positive price momentum happening in the market. Personally speaking, it has been a long time since I have had a warm fuzzy feeling after checking recent sales. But alas the engine is headed in the right direction. Metaphorically speaking, we have lots of coal to shovel to get up to speed but it feels like we are making progress.
The charts below show: 1) The average home appreciation for Boulder County and the United States over the past five years. 2) Boulder County’s ranking nationally in home appreciation. Currently we are 41st out of 304 markets.
Broker/Owner
Kearney Realty Co.
303.818.4055