Real Estate Information

Hello again, as many of you know I am a volunteer Realtor about once a quarter down at the Ft. Carson Housing office. This seemed like a pretty natural thing to do since I am a Veteran myself and it was my assignment to Ft. Carson in 1996 that brought me to Colorado Springs in the first place. With that in mind I get asked alot about troop numbers and who is coming when. These numbers will have a huge impact on both housing and our local economy. David Bamberger had an article in our local paper back on 2/17/208 that spelled out the numbers as well as Ive seen it put. Mr. Bamberger owns a local consulting and economic research firm her in Colorado springs.

So here we go. year follow by estimated number of soldiers.

2008.............17,500

2009.............22,700

2010.............25,000

2013.............30,000

With many of the soldiers deployed the full impact of the increase will not be felt till everyone is back at Ft. Carson. Meanwhile the on post construction boom has already started. It Will be interesting to watch this unfold.

Youve been watching the home shows on cable and you are waiting for the weather to clear to start that next project on your home or replace/repair an old one. Do you need a permit for that or can you just go for it. As a Realtor I know two things about permits and the folks at Regional Building here in Colorado Springs. The lack of a permit can kill you at resale!!! in my experience about 50% of home sales that are found to have non-permited work get shot down either at the start of the contract or during the inspection phase. As a matter of inspection most home inspectors are gonna go to the regional website, input the address of the home they are inspecting and look at the permit history. They will then compare the two at the property and write up their inspection based on permits and what they find at the home. Second, for the most part the folks at Regional are trying to help you the homeowner out. With that in mind here is a handout from the forlks at Regional Building. I welcome your calls and comments on this or any other post here. Have a great time with your projects and feel free to give me a shout if you want to know the return on investment of that pet project you are looking at starting. Till next time...

Well here we are one month into the new year and I just got the market numbers for January. We still have a lot of inventory to move and sales of 534 for the month is not going to help a lot. We have spent most of the last 30 days facing uncertainty with the economy and we are in a presidential election year so this is going to be an interesting year on top of a soft housing market. For the year our Average home price fell 7% and the Median home price fell by 5%. While this is not good news for sellers this is still in no way as bad as many markets have been hit. We are coming into our second full year of declining values starting around 2nd qtr of 2006. It is getting tougher to get sellers and buyers to see eye to eye when its time to put a contract together. So why is this? After 2 years of declining prices many sellers have run out of elbow room to negotiate with and are going to plan B which for many is turning the home into a rental or just waiting this market out. New listings are down by 13% from this time last year so that would indicate the later. If rates stay low this may be the last full year for buyers to take advantage of these inventory levels and two years of price reductions.

So stay tuned as we have a lot to track this year and things should be very interesting. 

Hello again, here are the final numbers for 2007 for single family homes in Colorado Springs . Once again we had a slight increase in new listings up 2.2% from Dec 06. Sales dropped by 12.7%, and avg sales price dropped 3.9%. In the face of many of the national markets we didn't do to bad. Interest rates are staying low, the military presences continues to grow and I remain optimistic that we will return to a more balanced market in the next 12 months. Our primary selling cycle this spring will be a good indicator of this markets ability to chip away at existing inventories. I will continue to chart each month and stay abreast of local events that may effect our market. Remember, much of the housing news that we hear each day is reported at a national level. The reality is, all markets are local. That is not to say they dont follow national trends as they often do. The skill lies in comparing the local with the national and counseling  home buyers and sellers accordingly. Until next time, have a great week.

Welcome Welcome to another monthly market update. The market continues its seasonal pullback with new listings down 2.3% from this time last year. This is good news as this gives us less inventory to sell off going into the new year. Sales for the month were at 667. This is a 17.7% decrease from last year, but over the past 20 years this market has averaged 8000 to 9000 total sales for the year and we are still on track to come in at those numbers. That surprises a lot of folks considering how the media is reporting things. Avg sales price and median sales price both dropped by 3.9 and 3.5% to $252074 and $207500. This is less of a drop then many other markets are taking across the nation. Total active listings are still up 10.5% so we still have some inventory to sell off as we go into the new year. Have a great Holiday season and check in next month as I continue to track our numbers.

Mike Erhardt

Hello again.

Met with Kelly Stein a local representative of Dale Carnegie Training. They offer courses in sales, presentations, and effective communications/human relations. These courses can be 3 full day seminars or evening weekly sessions over multiple weeks for those of us that are working professionals to busy during the day to take off. They also offer one day seminars on various topics. Tough to cover all of this in a blog but if you or your company has a training need or desire for excellence give her a call. Kelly can be reached at:

719-548-0175.

Take care and have a great week.

MIke

Hello once again to all,

Had a great meeting today with Sandra Lash, a health insurance broker with AAM, a local family owned business. Sandra and her company come to the table with over 25 years combined experience. Sandra is loosened with many of the big time health care providers. The power in this is when she sits down to do an initial consultation with you she will find you the best match from the various providers out there. Sandra will follow up after the sale to include being there for you at the time of your yearly review.

Sandra is a fellow member of Colorado business leads, a member of our chamber of commerce and someone I would refer to without hesitation.Her contact info is:

Sandra Lash

5140 N. Union Blvd #200 C/S, CO 80918

Ph# 719-598-7052

Had a great experience with a business or trade? Let me know about it.

Till next time-take care.

Hello again,

Here is another person to add to your " I need to check them out list". Olatha Sherman is a licensed massage therapist here in Colorado Springs. She does sports, deep tissue and Swedish massage just to name a few. For more info give her a call @ 473-7770 Her business is located at 324 N. Nevada. I have known Olatha for several years now. She is a dynamic individual and I would refer her to anyone without hesitation. Give her a call today!

Till next time,

Mike

Now that last months numbers are in its time to look at how the Colorado Springs Home market has changed during October for the past 3 years. While this market is down it is by no means out compared to the market of the late 1980's. Hope this helps. As always feel free to comment on any of the content posted here.

Take care till next time,

MIke

Numbers are out for October. No big surprises here. It is just going to take awhile to sell off some inventory. Interest rates are staying very low which makes this still a great time to buy. The average sales price has pulled back 7.8% and the median sales price has lost ground by 4%. In real numbers this is $263,811 to $243,160 and $213,500 to $205,000. There is good news for sellers as homes under $3000,000 are still selling while the over 3K to under 1 Mil market has really slowed down. Till Next Time,

Take care-Mike