Living Littleton

     According to an article that appeared in Thursday’s (January 29th) Rocky Mountain News, Denver was
selected as the place most people would want to live in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center.  
Denver beat out such well know places as San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Tampa, Phoenix, and Orlando.
Denver didn’t come out first in all categories, but when the results were tabulated it ended up being the
number one choice.  One thing that seemed strange was even though Denver is considered a liberal city,
it was the first choice among those that considered themselves Republicans, Independents, or conservative,
while it came out third behind San Diego and San Francisco among Democrats and those that considered
themselves liberal.
    While this report should help to keep Denver out of the depths of the economic troubles being
experienced by the rest of the country, it will bring all of the future problems linked to high growth.
In the short term, this just reinforces the statistics that Denver and Colorado have an increase in migration
which is helping to bring our housing woes to an end.  As a real estate broker, myself and others, are seeing
many signs of this turn around.  It won’t be quick or sudden but it is happening.

     The former Albertson’s at the northeast corner of S. Kipling Street and W. Bowles will soon be the site
of a unique fun activity center called Jump Street.  This 42,000 square foot building will host a huge area
of floor level trampolines combined with angled trampolines on the walls.  Users will be able to bounce from trampoline to trampoline as well as bounce off the walls to do interesting flips.  Jump Street is the
brain child of Golden resident Tim Crawford, who presently has had his first such venture running in
Thornton since 2007.  Crawford hopes to open a third facility in the Highlands Ranch area sometime in
in the future.
    Jump Street is shooting for an opening date in early March, so be watching for it.  To give the adults
something to do, Jump Street will have a gourmet coffee bar with TVs and wireless Internet connections.
Prices are projected to be $10 for two hours or $22 for an all day pass.  I don’t know the hours of
operation, yet, but I suppose it will be open in the evenings.

    Presently, the main funding mechanism in town for buyers with limited funds has been FHA.  With the decline of the lending market, FHA has been hotter than ever.  Recently, there have been some changes that willaffect you, as a borrower.  First of all, the loan limit has been lowered to $368,000 for a single family home in the Denver Metro area.  Also, the amount required for a down payment has been increased from 3% ot 3.5%, although FHA will still allow this to be a gift from family members.  FHA now charges an up-front Mortgage insurance premium of 1.75%, which can still be added into the loan.  If you have questions about FHA financing, call me and I’ll put you in touch with several reputable lenders.

In today’s Rocky Mountain News, it was reported that metro Denver’s home sales average prices fell by only 1.1% in November, making it the best performing city in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index.  In the twelve months ending with November, Denver performed better than all large markets except Dallas, in the report.  According to Case-Shiller, Denver area prices fell by only 4.3% for that preceding 12 month period.  Several things were cites as contributing to Denver’s continued improvement; lack of new home inventory and starts, declining inventory, lack of the huge price run up experienced in other cities, lower jobless rate, and the net increase in population.  While it may sound dumb to celebrating even when the figures show a decline, one has to remember that these figures are comparing average sales prices.  Averages are determined by the mix and in Denver the lower priced tier of homes have been selling like hot cakes.  To be sure, most of these are being snapped up ;by investors, but they are still selling.  The middle ranges are holding their own while the high end has been building inventory because of slow sales.  Combining all these numbers is what gives us the average.  Readers should not be too concerened  about the bottom line number but the mix of sales that gave us that number.   As many buyers are discovering, they have some healthy competition for quality homes in some of their price ranges.

   I know from experience that not all Home Owners Associations are the same.  Most are
are very well run, however, I know that there are a few that aren’t.  Even if they are well
run some people will have a difference of opinion of certain issues that will make them
feel they have to draw that “line in the sand”.  If you fell this is what you must do, please don’t try and show your displeasure by withholding your dues.  In 1991 the Colorado
legislature passed the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act which governs
HOA’s.  One feature of the act allows HOA’s to collect attorney fees from residents who don’t pay their dues.
If your dues have gone delinquent for an extended period of time, most HOA’s will have their legal firms
write the person in default a letter demanding back dues to be made current.  Here’s the bad news, most of
these legal letters will cost the HOA a minimum of $500, which you will also have to pay in addition to your
dues that are in arrears.  I was informed by a knowledgeable person in a large title company, that he’s seen
charges for collections from some the big wig legal companies as high as $5,000.  These cost get passed on to you and attach to your property.  Bottom line is that if you have a beef do your best to work through the
system, but don’t try to make your point by not paying your dues.

     Contrary to what you’ve been hearing, it’s still possible to buy a home with nothing down.  These are thirty year fixed rate loans with no Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), and they are at market rate or below.  These aren’t only for first time buyers, either.  I’m one of the few Realtors in Denver that know about this program.  It’s not brokered through other mortgage brokers, so the odds are you lender hasn’t heard about it.  If you want to find out more about these loans go to www.toogoodtobetrueloans.com, then call me so you can take advantage of some of the great bargains out there.

The 17 acres of land west of the Aspen Grove Shopping Center may be the site of a future multi-family development of 280 units.  These will be spread among seventeen two and three story buildings among the site which will also count a community club house, pool, and access to the South Platte Trail among the main amenities.  This project will be led by Alta Aspen Grove, which has recently filed a conceptual site development plan.  Doing so will start the project process and will involve meetings for community input as well as dealing with Arapahoe County’s Planning department. 

At this time I don’t know if this project will built for sale or to rent, but my best guess is that it will be for sale.  These types of developements, that are built close to light rail have been very popular and to date have sold quite well.  Plus, it could be a couple of years before the first ones are ready to go, which should position them for entrance into a much improved real estate market.   I’ll try and keep you posted as this proceeds through the process.