Living Littleton

    A new survey was conducted with first time  home buyers and was featured by RISC Media.  According to BBVA Compas many first time buyers weren’t totally prepared for the after purchase experience.  Going with the law of averages, some first time Littleton home buyers may find they agree with some of the findings.

    According to the survey, prior to purchase, the vast majority of buyers (88%) felt they had accounted for the expenses of owning a home.  This figure contrast significantly from those buyers that had purchased a home for the first time in the last twelve months.  Just over half (51%) found that expenses were more than they expected, resulting in a change in lifestyle.                                   

     The good news was that 70% of them felt the unexpected expenses leveled out after awhile, however, 87% did end up changing their lifestyle.  Although the study didn’t go into great detail, this changing of lifestyle may not be all bad.  I’m guessing the change resulted in less money for discretionary items, which means more money was spent on maintaining an appreciating asset as compared to spending on items that give no return except for temporary gratification.

     If there is anything to take away from this survey, I would say it’s to not stretch yourself too thin when buying a home for the first time.  It may make sense if your career is providing steady wage increases, but for most people either be prepared to tighten the budget a little or save up a little more before signing on the dotted line.  It’s still the best investment most people will ever make, just don’t be surprised with some of the initial unexpected bills.   

Jerry Becker
jbeckerhomes@comcast.net

     March sales statistics have been released, comparing March 2010 to March 2009.  The numbers aren’t consistent for the two Littletons.  By two Littletons, I’m refering to the City of Littleton (SSC) and unincorporated South Jefferson County (JFS), which is also known as Littleton.  Keep in mind that Trailmark, which is in Southern Jefferson County is part of the City of Littleton.

     When comparing the average days on the market, both areas experienced a decline, which was steeper in SSC than in JFS.  SSC went from about 93 days in March 2009 to about 68 days in March of this year.  JFS dropped from about 98 to 79 days.

     When it comes to average price for homes sold, this is where the areas reversed themselves.  SSC saw the average price of homes sold go from $310K in March of 2009 to about $210K in March of this year.  JFS, on the other hand, saw an increase from $275K to $345k in year over year numbers.  The  numbers are for all types of property, both single and multiple family.  I’ll break them out further in a future post.

     I want to stress, as I have in previous posts , the numbers don’t reflect the increase or decrease in home values but the average prices of all the homes sold in a particular period.  In JFS more expensive homes were sold in March 2010 than in March 2009, while just the opposite happened in SSC. 

Jerry Becker
jbeckerhomes@comcast.net

   I just read an article on Rismedia that reported the number of households in the US declined by 1.2 million from 2005 through 2008.  This happened in spite of the fact the population grew by 3.4 million people.  This was the results of a University of Southern California professor, who studied 80 of the country’s largest metropolitan areas.  Even though Littleton was considered one in the 80 that were studied, it was included as a part of Denver.  Even though this study was only through 2008, experts believe the downward trend has continued through 2009.

   This shrinking was contributed to the squeeze the economic downturn has had on household budgets.  Kids are moving back in with parents or delaying moving out and starting their own households.  Also, more families are combining households to help spread out cost.  People are getting roommates or just sharing a house with another family.

   This decline in households has contributed to the higher than normal vacancy rate among apartments and rental homes.  It’s also taken a big chuck out of our economy.  Experts don’t expect this trend to reverse until the unemployment rate starts to declining significantly, probably in 2011.

Jerry Becker
jbeckerhomes@comcast.net

     Everyone knows the real estate market isn’t as hot as it was five years ago, and everyone also knows that the types of home loans available are a fraction of what they once were.  You can imagine my elation, when I stumbled onto a great loan two years ago, that nobody knew anything about.  It was unheard of because they didn’t advertise and rely solely on word of mouth.  I thought that with this loan, I would have people lined up to buy a home, but was I ever surprised.  I’ve mailed out over 1,000 post cards, advertised in a publication that went out to 20,000 homes in the Littleton area, and placed numerous notices on Craig’s List, only to be amazed at how jaded we’ve become to print media.
      I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised as I find myself tossing many things from my mail box into the “circular file”.  It’s probably also the fact so many lenders have shouted from the rooftops that they had the greatest loan since the invention of the wheel, only to have the public get sucked into some type of loan they wished they never signed up for.  I read once that as a society, we get hit with about 10,000 messages a day.  I think the number was actually higher than that, but since I don’t have the quote in front of me, I’m going to be conservative.  When one takes all that into account, one shouldn’t be that surprised at the perceived lack of interest.
   Oh, yeah, about that Best Loan in Littleton, here it goes with some of the highligts;
30 Year Fixed Rate                                                                       
No Down Payment Required
No Closing Cost; Just Pre-Paids                                   
No Private Mortgage Insurance
Always Below the Market Rate
Can Have the Seller Buy the Rate Down
   So what do you think?  Should a loan like that get people’s attention?  I always thought so.
Oh, by the way, today’s rate is 4.75% fixed and I can get most sellers to buy the rate down to 4% for 30 years. 
www.YesYouCanHomeLoan.com
Jerry Becker
jbeckerhomes@comcast.net

     As many of you know, Colorado is different in their approach to local property taxes, because they allow for the creation of Special Districts.  In the majority of states, local improvements and services are funded through their local city and county governments.  Things like fire protection, recreational facilities, libraries, water, sewer, and even roads can be funded through special taxing districts.  Littleton is no different in the use of these funding mechanisms.

     When purchasing property, it’s the responsibility of the buyer to investigate the districts to the buyer’s satisfaction.  Paragraph 8.4 of the Colorado Purchase Contract explains about Colorado’s use of special districts.  This explanation and warning was inserted into the purchase contract to make purchasers aware of districts, especially in the light of the financial failures of some districts in the mid 1980’s.  It is to your benefit to understand special districts because they affect your property taxes.  You can obtain a free profile of any special district from the Division of Local Government by calling 303-866-2156.  The profiles will help you evaluate the financial health of a district.  Remember to have your real estate broker allow enough time for you to get a tax certification from the title company, so you’ll know what your taxing districts are.  With that information, you’ll know which ones to request profiles on.

Jerry Becker
jbeckerhomes@comcast.net

It was all over the news outlets how the latest reports showed an increase for year over year home prices in Denver and Littleton.  Of course, the report didn’t mention Littleton by name, however, it was included as being part of the overall Denver Metro market. 

According to the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller home-price index, the Denver area prices increased by 2.9%  from January 1, 2009 when compared to January 1, 2010.   There were five major markets that did even better, and they were; Washington D. C, LA, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco at the top. 

What analysts read from these numbers, is that the market has stabilized.  No one seemed to be predicting a soon return to higher gains on a monthly basis as we had experienced in the past good times.  One thing I want to make clear to the reader is, these gains are based on averages of the cost of homes sold.  It doesn’t mean that every home went up in value 2.9%, but the “basket value” of all the home sales did rise.  Over the last several years, the low end of our market had been extremely hot with a high number of investors purchasing homes that they could spruce up and then rent out with a positive cash flow.  While this was happening, the higher price homes sat on the market for extremely long periods of time.  This heavy weighting to the low end helped to bring our averages down over the last couple of years.  The good news was that home values didn’t fall by the amounts of decline mentioned in the media.

Yes, our homes did loose value over the last half dozen years, but not to the degree some people think.  I still hear of people that are sitting on the fence waiting for values to fall further.  Baring any economic disasters, I think these people may be disappointed.  The question remains, ‘what will interest rates do and how will this affect the recovery?’  Great question and I wished I knew the answer.  The Federal Reserve has indicated they will stop buying mortgages which should have the result of pushing home loan rates higher.  I’ve heard experts predict they could go up from 30 to 150 basis points. 

Time will tell, but one thing we have in our favor, is that Colorado/Denver is still considered a great place to live and conduct business.  This quality of life has and still is attracting people and businesses to our area.

Jerry Becker
jbeckerhomes@comcast.net