by neil kearney | Oct 23, 2008 | Colorado Lifestyle, Photos, Uncategorized
Today I went to get new tires installed on my car around noon. I was greeted at the door by a sign that said “We are no longer taking any new customers today, please come back tomorrow we open at 8 am.” Just like the squirrels collecting nuts and the bears feasting before their hibernation; humans in Boulder were changing from summer tires to winter tires in order to prepare for the coming change in weather. These are the smart ones, the ones who will make it through the winter. Others get used to the beautiful weather and don’t prepare until it is too late. I took the photo below a few years ago shows what can happen if instead of preparing for the cold, you try to get that last bit of pollen.
by neil kearney | Sep 25, 2008 | Statistics, Uncategorized
I’m always trying to get a better picture about what is happening out there in the market. Generally it is slow but it certainly isn’t stagnant. Each day I get a “hotsheet” that gives me a one day snapshot of what has happened in the last business day. Among others, I get to see the new listings, those that went under contract and those that closed. I can gauge general activity by looking at how long each of these lists are each day. I especially like to look at how many and what type of homes have gone under contract. I thought it would be interesting to expand this look and see how the gross numbers of new listings, under contract listings and sold listings compare over time. The chart below shows the data over a year from all residential properties in Boulder County.
The left side of the chart shows greater number of new listings, under contract listings and sales during 2006 and 2007 than in 2008. We’ll see how the rest of September does because it looks to be quite a bit low in all categories for being the 25th of the month already. It is interesting that the basic monthly/seasonal trends are still holding steady.
by neil kearney | Sep 5, 2008 | Colorado Lifestyle, Uncategorized
Single Stream Recycling or “What is that smell?”
Recently Boulder’s City Council changed the trash ordinance to require
trash haulers to provide at a minimum a 32 gallon container for compost. Western Disposal, the largest local trash hauler made this change in conjunction with changing the existing recycling program to “single stream”. You may ask “what does this all mean?”. The city had in mind to reduce the amount of waste going to landfills.
Here is what it has meant for me and my family:
- I can now throw the recyclable cans and papers into one large bin which is convenient.
- It has launched us into the composting world – and it has been a change for us. We have been catching each other throwing items in the trash that should go in the compost bin. During the first two weeks we filled 32 gallons full and felt pretty good about ourselves until it was emptied and the residual liquid in the bottom of the bin was unbelievably smelly. Someone must have composted a dead animal without our knowledge. I have now cleaned out bin and we are back on track.
- We have been able to reduce the size of our regular trash can and reduce our bill by about 1/2.
I think it is a great program but I’m very curious where my smelly compost goes. This is another example of how Boulder is just a little different than your run of the mill city. Just a few years ahead of the times – Just the way we like it.
by neil kearney | Aug 27, 2008 | Boulder County Housing Trends, Statistics, Uncategorized
OFHEO Quarterly Appreciation Report
The latest price index report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight has been released and it contains some very interesting information. During the one year period ending June 30th 2008 the average appreciation nationally was -1.71% for purchases and transactions and -4.8% for purchase only transactions. Thirty of the fifty states showed positive appreciation for the one year period; and CA, FL and NV saw prices decline more than 12% over the the past two quarters.
Closer to home, Colorado had average appreciation of 1.82% over the past year, ranking it 18th. For the 1 year period ending in March, Colorado ranked 23rd with an appreciation of 2.29%. Clearly appreciation nationally is still struggling. For the Boulder area; our appreciation for the past year was 2.47%, ranking it 69th out of 292 metropolitan areas, not bad. For the second quarter Boulder County had appreciation of .25%, ranking it 67th.
According to Patrick Lawler, the chief economist of OFHEO “The most overbuilt areas of the country –including California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida –contrast greatly with most other states, where prices are declining more moderately or even increasing”.
The attached chart shows the appreciation rate of Boulder County in orange contrasted to the United States as a whole.
by neil kearney | Jul 2, 2008 | Uncategorized |
Conoco-Phillips To Bring Up To 7,000 Jobs To Louisville
Our local housing market has been looking for a spark. Don’t get me wrong,
we are doing much better than most areas in the country, but we have been looking for a spark for a few years. This is it! Conoco-Phillips the oil company is developing a renewable energy research center on the former Storage Tek campus in Louisville. They will begin to redevelop the site later this year. The company plans to redevelop the site with a state-of-the-art research facility as well as a hotel. The site will be their world headquarters for renewable energy research and last week they announced that the site could employ up to 7,000 people. These would be high paying research jobs. The impact on the area could be simply amazing. Operations won’t begin until 2011 or 2012 but the impact on the area from construction will begin much sooner.
You might remember that the company purchased the site anonymously and at market value.
The company has already signed a multi-million dollar sponsored research agreement with the University of Colorado Bio-fuels center.
Not since IBM came to Boulder in the early 1970’s and Level 3 and Sun Microsystems came to Broomfield in the late 1990’s, have we seen such a large corporate promise of jobs. This is a great time to invest in the area. Even without this future influx I feel a pent up demand that is just waiting for some good news to pop.
by neil kearney | Apr 8, 2008 | Uncategorized
Google Maps “Street View”
I just found a great new way to save gas. I use Google Maps all the time to find a location of a house that I may be looking into but I still needed to get in my car to see what the house and street look like. No more! In my area “Street View” shows me a stitched view of most streets and most houses. Here is an example of street view for one of my listings. You can view the location and then click and move on the photo of the street and the house.
The best part of the tool is that you can move down the street by using arrows that look like they are on the street and then at any point, you can do a 360 degree pan and see what the street looks like in all directions. Very Cool, check it out for yourself at
http://www.maps.google.com.
