by neil kearney | Jan 16, 2007 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Uncategorized
Yesterday, I showed the level of activity in our local real estate market by month. The result was a nice curve that peaked in June. Today I’m going to show the median closed prices by month. The chart below shows very little correlation between price and the month it sells. In my experience the time of year affects time on the market more than price. 
As always, I’d love to be of service. Give me a call and I’d love to show you how your home fits into the local market.
by neil kearney | Jan 15, 2007 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics
As a full time Realtor®, I get this question a lot. Before answering I try to understand their situation and then give them the information. Our market is not as seasonal as some areas but I suppose it more so than others. Homes sell every month of the year and no matter when you put your home on the market it has to be ready for the market. That is, clean, in good condition and most importantly priced correctly. The chart below shows closed transactions for each month for the past three years. To get the time when these homes actually found a buyer subtract 30-45 days.
You can see that June has traditionally been the month with the most closings so that means that the end of April through the begining of June are the “hotest”times in the market. It is interesting to note that while the number of sales was down during 2006 the market timing remained the same.
Tomorrow I will reveal if there are any similar pattern to prices. Do you get more by listing your house in April?
by neil kearney | Jan 15, 2007 | Statistics
In the next few days I’d like to present a few more recent statistics compiled from year end sales figures from IRES (our Northern Colorado MLS). Today I’d like to present inventory numbers by price range for Boulder County. Next I will present a graph that will show you the best months in which to sell your home.
As I have mentioned before, inventory as I figure it is a comparative statistic. If you take one figure itself it may not agree with other figures such as Days to Offer or Days on the Market. Inventory shows the relative strength of a given area, year and in this case price range. It freezes a point in time and says “given what we know, how will the future look”. In this case we know how many homes have sold for any given range during the past twelve months. We then compare this known on a monthly basis to another known, how many homes on the market. We then compare these two figures by dividing the number of active homes currently on the market by the average number of sales per month during the past tweleve months. This gives us the number of months it would take to sell all of the current listings assuming that there are no new listings coming on the market (of course this would never happen).
So for today I’d like to show the relative strength of different price ranges in Boulder County for both single family homes and attached dwellings and compare those numbers to what I compiled at the end of the third quarter.
Single Family Homes – In general you can see that as prices rise so does inventory. The price ranges through $700,000 are around 5 months of inventory while the prices above $1,000,000 are at least 10 months and up to 20 months for homes above 1.5 million. You can see that all inventory numbers are below those recorded at the end of September. We did have a reasonable fall but I think some of this has to do with sellers taking their homes off the market for the Holidays.
Attached Dwellings – There is less variability in condos and townhouses until you get to the luxury segment above $600,000. Most of the numbers are between 4 and 8 months with the average being 6.02 months.
Have a great week! Note the photo of the Flatirons shown above was shot this morning from the parking area of the
29th Street Mall across from my office. Cold, but a beautiful blue sky!
by neil kearney | Jan 12, 2007 | Uncategorized
It was announced yesterday that the convention to choose the next Democratic presidential candidate will be held in Denver. The last time Denver held this event was in 1908. The events are not expected to officially spill over into Boulder but I’m sure the events will have a positive impact on the entire region. It seems like all you need to do to get a good snowstorm is schedule a Monday Night Football game. Maybe we will be lucky and be able to highlight, in my opinion, the most beautiful time of the year in Colorado.
by neil kearney | Jan 11, 2007 | For Buyers, For Sellers
It seems each New Year brings with it more issues that come into an already complicated real estate transaction. Litigation and legislation seem to be the main 
influences that keep our contracts expanding. New for us in Colorado this year on the approved contracts are sections that pertain to HOA documentation, dealing with foreclosed property and issues regarding the disclosure of methamphetimine. All of these issues came from 2006 legislation at the state level and are designed to protect the public.
- Common Interest Community (CIC) – The new section about HOA’s sets forth that a Buyer will be required to become a part of the association and will need to abide by all of the rules. In order to agree a buyer needs to understand the rules, right? So the contract now says what information will be required (Bylaws, Rules and Regulations, most recent annual balance statelment, annual income and expenditures statement, annual budget, moste recent annual owner’s meeting minutes and any directors meeting minutes from the past 6 months) and who is responsible for providing it. This comes down to the Seller getting and paying for the documentation. If the Buyer objects to any of this information they can cancel within a date set forth in the offer.
- Foreclosure – This new section requires that an addenda be attached to the contract if a foreclosed property is being purchased by an investor. This is supposed to protect homeonwers who sign their house away to investor/predators who claim to have a way to save their home. This does not apply if an owner occupant buys a foreclosure.
- Methamphetamine – This is a growing issue locally and nationally. Most manufacturers of this nasty drug “cook” the stuff in residential houses. The residue is toxic and will contaminate a house. In order to clean up a house it must be cleaned to the standards of the State Health Department. The new language in the contract requires Sellers disclosure of presence of a meth lab. Even if the Seller says that the house has not been used for that purpose Buyer may investigate by hiring a certified hygenist to test. If the Buyer finds meth residue as a result of the test they can cancel at any time up to closing. This is fairly new so I will be interested in finding a certified hygenist and seeing how much they cost.
