Denver Neighborhood News

5 Strategies to Find Denver Homes for Sale

Mark — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:04:28 +0000

The number of available homes for sale in Denver continues to underwhelm the market. Looking at central Denver (Colfax to Hampden and Broadway to Quebec) inventory was down 47% this March compared to March 2010 and only slightly up from last month (plus 32 homes) during a time that inventory should really start seasonally accelerating.

So what’s a buyer to do if they can’t find the right home from the meager selection? We have five strategies for helping our clients uncover hidden inventory.

One) We hang our licenses under the Coldwell Banker network of agents. Year after year, the Denver Business Journal ranks Coldwell Banker as the number one real estate company in Denver based on sales volume. Our offices meet every Wednesday morning to discuss buyer and seller “wants and needs”. Many times we are able to make a match between buyers and sellers before a home ever comes on the market. We’ve also taken this network communication to a private Facebook group for cross-office and real-time communication.

Two) The Cramer Group has downloaded from MLS the email addresses of every agent who has transacted a deal in Denver during the past two years. We have uploaded those addresses into our own email blasting service to query the entire Denver real estate community on behalf of our clients. By far and way, this is the most effective strategy we employ.

Three) Many properties that have previously failed to sell are withdrawn from the market out of frustration. Given the lack of inventory, a few of those homes now appear worthy of a second look. The problem for realtors is finding homes that have been withdrawn and not re-listed, or re-listed and sold. Sifting through the data is laborious and mind-numbing. The Cramer Group has invested in developing their own software application to search through the data and ferret out these properties in seconds. Our clients are able to see the property photos from MLS and select the homes that most interest them. We then follow-up with a letter and a knock on the door to the previously frustrated sellers. You should see the surprise in their faces!

Four) Soon to be distressed properties are not as widely available in central Denver as they are in the suburbs or in most other cities (knock on wood), but there are still a few. The Cramer Group subscribes to a service that allows us to see owners who are behind on their mortgage payments. We’ve identified homes months in advance of their short-sale listing date, and offer those as possible options for our clients.

Five) Finally, we help our buyers identify homes not on the market that they like and send letters to their owners. This is usually less successful than the other four strategies and diminishes negotiating power a bit, but in the quest to find the right home it’s best to leave no stone un-turned.

Denver Home Inventory

Mark — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:28:32 +0000

What is this: We calculate Denver home inventory using a twelve month period. Home inventory is the number of months required to sell all the homes currently on the market if they were to sell at the same rate at which they’ve sold during the past 12 months.

Home Inventory = Properties for Sale ÷ Properties Sold Past 12 Months x 12

Why is this orange: Our graphs represent Denver home inventory by price point for more meaningful analysis. In some cases a home might be on the market at a price point that has not sold in the past 12 months. Since division by zero is undefined, we assume that “Properties Sold Past 12 Months” equals one. In such cases we represent the assumption with an orange line.

Denver Homes on The Market Continue to Decline

Mark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:17:35 +0000

Central Denver’s available inventory continues to fall as unsatisfied sellers and overwhelmed banks withhold homes. December shows an almost 40% decrease in available inventory compared to the previous December.

Our analysis shows that the drop in inventory cuts across all price points as well. The absorption rate is the number of months it would take to sell the current housing inventory at the rate at which homes have sold over the past 12 months. For Denver the absorption rate has dropped 56% for homes over $1 million and 51% for homes under $200,000.

Most analysts attribute the decrease to frustrated sellers with expectations that the market cannot meet and to new government regulations on banking foreclosure procedures.

Denver Real Estate Statistics for December

Mark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:23:12 +0000

Who’s Your Santa

Mark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:19:18 +0000

We analyzed 7,000+ sales transactions in Denver from the past 12-months to see which type of seller (builder, government, bank, individual, or relocation) was willing to give the biggest discount off their final asking price to get their home under contract (see graph below).

Ebenezer Builders are the least likely to give up much on their prices. In truth they do offer incentives through material upgrades instead of price discounts. They are also adept at understanding what buyers want and are willing to pay.

Government and bank sellers are a bit trickier, because they are not, or perhaps should not, be in the business of selling homes and need to move inventory efficiently. In many cases they underprice homes to create buyer frenzy and force prices closer to market value. Their “drama pricing” skews the numbers to make them appear, at least in this analysis, not as giving as they might be.

Relocation companies that corporations hire to help sell moving employees’ homes are full of good will and much merry! In some cases, certainly not all, relocation companies will make up the loss between what their seller paid for the home and how much a buyer is willing to pay for it. To the home owner, once they are underwater, they don’t care how much of a loss the relocation company will take. There is a limit to how big the spread can be, but usually it’s quite generous. Knowing that they have a second round of negotiations for inspection items, sellers are motivated to pass on a bigger loss to the relocation company on the purchase price in order to avoid having to shell out money for inspection items, a cost that most relocation companies will not cover.

It’s easy to assume that the biggest discount equals the best value. That’s not always the case. A well priced home with a small discount may be a better value than an over priced home with a large discount — each deal is unique.

We hope you enjoyed our last e-letter for the year, and if we may assist you or some you know buy or sell a home we would be grateful to hear from you. Thank you for your support in 2011 and here’s loking forward to a great 2012!

Denver Real Estate Statistics for October

Mark — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:35:54 +0000

Denver Real Estate Statistics - October 2011

Metrolist released Denver’s October real estate statistics, and as mentioned in previous posts – inventory is down. In fact for the greater Denver metro area, it’s down 33% compared to October 2010. At the same time closed transactions are up 12%.

Our central Denver real estate analysis that includes neighborhoods such as Cherry Creek, Wash Park, Hilltop, and Platt Park shows inventory down 28%. Considering that central Denver has a median price that is almost twice that of the greater metro area, shows that lower priced homes are in shorter supply than more expensive homes. Home under $300,000 in Denver will start to see increasing prices if they are not already.

Pending is a new field that Metrolist recently added, so the increase of 233.6% is a result of poor data capture in the past.

Our Disappering Market

Mark — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:49:48 +0000

Our Denver real estate market continues to disappear. October’s numbers show a 28% decrease in available inventory compared to October last year for central Denver (Colfax to Hampden and Quebec to Broadway). Sadly, prices remain flat at an average of $423,690 compared to $424,518 a year ago. It appears that buyers are taking their ball and going home as well.

[Denver Business Journal] “Consumers are not putting their Denver homes on the market unless they have a pressing need to sell,” said Gary Bauer of Littleton, an analyst of Metrolist data.

The inventory of listed unsold Denver homes stood at 15,794 in October, down 8 percent from September and 28 percent from October 2010. There were 21,851 homes on the market in October 2010.

“We are moving into new territory with the current level of unsold Denver homes,” Bauer said, noting people aren’t putting homes on the market because of concerns for jobs and the economy.

Read the whole article

Mark — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:16:55 +0000

[Denver Business Journal] Home prices in metro Denver posted a year-over-year decline in August for the 14th consecutive month, but they rose from the previous month for the fourth time in the last five months, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index, released Tuesday.

Denver’s single-family home price performance also bested the average for 20 major U.S. cities covered by the closely-followed monthly report, both for month-over-month and year-over-year changes.

The prices are for resales of stand-alone single-family homes in Denver only, not new construction or condominiums.

Read The Whole Article

New Denver Real Estate Project at Kent Place

Mark — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:51:19 +0000

Work is also under way on the Kent Place property, Denver real estate’s latest addition, as crews continue clearing and grading the site, constructing retaining walls and installing underground utilities.

Kent Place is the proposed development of the former Denver Seminary site that covers 11.4 acres of land at University and Hampden. The original proposal put forward by developer Continuum Partners was to build 270 to 300 luxury residential condominium units along with about 52,000 square feet of retail and office space.

However, the economy brought about changes to the Denver Real Estate market. The current plan calls for construction of a retail development on half the site and will include a new concept King Soopers specialty grocery and food store as the major tenant. The elevations, along with color and material samples for building that will house the grocery store received Denver city approval.

Read the whole article

“Denver Country Club” Top Ten Most Searched U.S. Neighborhood

Mark — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:37:41 +0000

Denver’s Country Club neighborhood is among the 10 most-searched U.S. neighborhoods, based on search activity for for-sale homes in September at Zillow.com, the online real estate company reported.

Zillow estimates the median value of homes in the Country Club neighborhood at $665,600, which is 244 percent above the estimated median value of $193,500 for homes citywide.

Four of the five most-searched U.S. neighborhoods — and five of the top 10 — are in Portland and Seattle.

View the full report: Top 10 hottest neighborhoods for real estate searches.