There is more great economic news on the horizon for Albuquerque!

Last January, Fidelity Investments announced that they would be moving to a new, 210,000 SF facility in Albuquerque's Mesa Del Sol mixed-use project, according to Reuters. They expect ultimately to have 1250 jobs at this facility, and now they're beginning hiring!  This is great employment news for Albuquerque!

According to the Fidelity Investments website, the company will be holding an Open House on July 29th, from 2:00-7:00 for prospective employees to meet with company hiring managers. At this point, Fidelity Investments is hiring 100 new HR Service Associates, and they expect to employ 300 people in Albuquerque by the end of 2008. Interested? Just click here for more information on the jobs and the hiring process.

This should boost the Albuquerque real estate market, already much stronger than most real estate markets around the country, even further. According to an article in the New Mexico Business Weekly, the 1250 jobs eventually expected at Fidelity's Mesa del Sol facility are expected to be in the $37,000-$65,000 range, thus making these new or transferred employees well able to purchase new homes. And whether a buyer's preference is for historic homes or horse properties, Tanoan or downtown lofts, there are plenty of great Albuquerque homes available for these new buyers!

It appears that Hewlett-Packard (HP) will be moving 800 jobs from Colorado Springs to Rio Rancho, New Mexico (just outside Albuquerque.)

This is great news for the Albuquerque real estate market. While HP management is being a bit cagey about the move (the Rocky Mountain News reported that HP spokesman Dave Berman said the New Mexico center's effect on Colorado Springs hadn't been determined because staffing details were still being considered), news about the move is being widely circulated in the media in both Albuquerque and Colorado Springs.

The call center in Colorado Springs will be closed, and sources indicate that employees who do not agree to make the move will lose their jobs. Those who do move will be eligible for help with relocation expenses, according to an article in the New Mexico Independent.

I've now got first-hand confirmation of this move. Last week, I worked with an out-of-town buyer who is an HP employee slated to move to NM. He'll be among those accepting the relocation offer, and explaind to me that employees will have to move by June, but that the company has told him that if he gets his house sold sooner, he'll be able to transfer to the Rio Rancho location any time before that.

This should be a shot-in-the-arm for real estate sales in Rio Rancho, and indeed for the entire greater Albuquerque real estate market.

In addition to the employees relocating from Colorado Springs, HP plans to hire a large number of local residents, making this good news for the Albuquerque job market, too. Jon Flaxman, HP's executive vice president and chief administrative officer indicated that the payroll ultimately could reach $50-$60 million a year. This is great economic news for Albuquerque. The 1200+ jobs HP is projecting will be a welcome boost to the NM employment base.

I never thought it was legal to sell raw milk. Surely that whole pasteurization process is what makes milk safe to drink, isn't it? I'd heard that you could, of course, milk your own cow and drink the stuff if you wanted to, but that you couldn't sell it to anyone else.

Turns out I was wrong, and Bosque Farms, New Mexico has its own little dairy that sells fresh, raw milk, but only in Valencia County!

I was alerted to this little gem of a dairy by a recent article in the Valencia County News Bulletin, which detailed the hands-on production at this little farm at 150 Country Lane in Bosque Farms. Turns out that Mark and Bernadette Simons and their children Luke Simons and Megan Ripper have a very limited quantity of both cow's milk and goat's milk that you can buy, fresh from the cow, the way our forefathers all drank their milk (with the cream rising to the top, mm-mm!) And, according to their "Raw Milk Dairy" website, their product is both completely legal and very healthy!

The Sunshine Dairy website notes that their farm's milk parlor, milk processing room, and process of operations "are all audited and passed as part of the certification process which is required for the New Mexico State Department of Agriculture (NMDA) to issue us a permit to sell raw milk. Requirements met include the Federal Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) and the additional requirements imposed on raw milk production." While they have not yet met the requirements to be "certified organic," their animalsare free of additives, hormones, or other manufactured production enhancement treatments.

They provide further background, explaining that regulations requiring pasteurization initially became important because of huge "swill dairies" operating in New York State, which kept cows in complete confinement, being fed waste produced from alcohol manufacturing (swill). The conditions were unsanitary, and the perfect breeding ground for diseases like brucellosis. Rural doctors, however, were, at the same time, touting the health benefits of raw milk produced from healthy, pastured cattle.

Still dubious? Apparently recent tests from Organic Pastures dairy in California (www.organicpastures.com/faq.html), show that pathogen growth in healthy raw milk is less than in pasteurized milk. The Sunshine Dairy website gives details of their daily routine producing milk from their "girls," as they term their cow and goats, and also provides additional resources about the health benefits of properly produced raw milk vs. pasteurized milk:

www.realmilk.com/healthbenefits.html
www.raw-milk-facts.com
www.rawmilk.org
www.westonaprice.org

So, if you've ever had a hankering to once more experience that fresh milk you remember drinking back on Grandpa's farm in the old days, head on over to Bosque Farms, NM, and check out this little dairy operation!

For more information about Bosque Farms and VAlencia County, visit our website at www.ChoicesRealEstate.com, or contact me any time: 505-239-4796, Laura@LauraWarden.com

Yes, despite all the gloom and doom media info floating around out there, the statistics are in, and home prices were UP in Albuquerque for the month of May, 2008!

A recent article in the Albuquerque Journal detailed specifics about this encouraging real estate trend for Albuquerque, NM and surrounding areas.

The median sales price for the Albuquerque Metro Area this past June was $205,000, up 3% compared to May of 2007. The average sales price was up as well, from an '07 figure of $246,062 to an '08 figure of $247,295.

Part of the good news was that higher-end home sales have improved, with seven homes in the $1 million plus market selling in May. The increase in sales of luxury homes has aided the overall increases in sales statistics.

Lest you think we're back in a "sellers' market," though, there are some other statistics that aren't so rosy! The actual number of homes selling is down substantially this year over last, and that goes for May as well as the rest of the year. The Albuquerque Board of Realtors tracked on 674 homes closing during May 2008; in May 2007, over 1000 homes closed! So, while prices are holding steading, and even edging up, there are an awful lot of homes sitting longer on the market. So sellers can't afford to get complacent. It's still very important to have your home priced competitively, marketed cleverly and aggressively, and showing at its best in order to have your home appear next month in the "sold" column rather than lingering around in the "still on the market" category!

Some more detailed statistics show the number of properties selling by area and by price range. See the charts below:

As always, for more information about the Albuquerque Real Estate market, or about specific properties, check out my website at www.LauraWarden.com, contact me any time by cell phone at 505-239-4796 or by email at laura@laurawarden.com.

Albuquerque, NM offers so many great options for horse enthusiasts to want to forget about paying for expensive boarding for a horse, and for the ever-increasing gas costs to then drive from home to the stable to exercise and ride that beautiful animal.

Albuquerque is probably one of the few cities anywhere where one can live right in Albuquerque proper, less than 15 minutes commute from Downtown, Uptown, and the Airport, and still have a couple of acres of peaceful, serene horse property to come home to!

Albuquerque's North and South Valley areas offer large numbers of both small, modest horse properties and also large equestrian estates suitable for professional breeding and training. The South Valley, in particular, abounds in reasonable priced beautiful homes that provide space for your favorite equine friend (or for cattle, llamas, or ostriches, for that matter.)

The virtual tour below gives just one example of one of the stunning yet affordable properties that Albuquerque's South Valley has to offer. This light, bright and airy home is gorgeous, and offers meticulously maintained barns, fencing and livestock facilities, all on over an acre and a half of irrigated pastures, less than 15 minutes from downtown. Check it out, or search all the horse properties available in and around Albuquqerque on my Albuquerque Horse Properties website.

Whew! It has been a whale of a week! Maybe it's just because we're trying to get out of town to attend our daughter's college graduation this weekend, but Brian and I are suddenly in one of the busiest real estate markets we've seen on over 20 years (each!) in the business!

I've gotten a bit behind in my blogging because of this. As I sit here trying to catch up on posting something to my poor little blog, I am in the midst of a day that goes as follows:

• We're currently in the middle of negotiating one offer
• We just reached agreement a couple of hours ago on a two other purchase contracts we've spent the last two days negotiating
• A fourth home sale just reached agreement day before yesterday
• We just put a bunch of time into negotiations on two other offers this week that seem to have fallen apart, but
• Brian's closing on another home for some great buyers as I sit here writing this post, and
• We've taken two beautiful new listings this week, and just finished another listing appointment
• We've got an inspection appointment tonight for a home sale that was just agreed on two days ago & will close in 2 weeks time, and I'm also busy arranging a final inspection on a property closing next Wednesday!
• So many of these contracts are closing with really short escrows that May will be a banner month for closings

Lest you think this is bragging about what wonderful agents we are, I hasten to point out that in April, for instance, we had no closings whatsoever, and so were among those "Chicken Little" agents who wondered if the sky was falling in on real estate!

We were never quite this busy in one little old week even in the midst of the "boom" market of 2005 and 2006! Maybe Albuquerque's real estate market is picking up everyone, for all our NM sellers... Or maybe it is just that somebody somewhere knows that we're trying to go watch daughter Liz pick up those (expensive) college degrees of hers and wants to make it a real challenge to get away! 

Do you think it would it would always rain home sales and listings if we could just persuade a family member to graduate every day?

Not yet ready for prime time with your horse? Here's a great option for NM horse and rider pairs who could use some competition experience in a low-stress environment:

Horse Play Days!

As reported in the Valencia News Bulletin this past weekend, long-time horse trainer J.T. Edmonds has organized a series of "Horse Play Days" at the Valencia County Rodeo Grounds in Belen, New Mexico. These events are designed to give New Mexico kids and their horses an opportunity to compete in a setting that is

• Low Cost
• Low Stress
• Full of opportunities for practice, praise, and yes, ribbons, too!

The competitions are geared to skill levels rather than age, so your sixteen-year-old novice rider won't have to compete with the kids who've been doing competitve barrel racing since the age of five! The events are especially good for green horses, green riders, or both. The Horse Play Days focus on barrel racing, flags, and pole-bending. The competitions are open to all, and the cost is low: just $5 per event to compete, and only $3 per event for an exhibition ride.

The Horse Play Days will be held on the following Sundays beginning at 1:00:

April 20th, May 25th, June 8th, and July 6th.

There will also be a Friday evening competition on August 22nd at 7:00 p.m. For more information, contact J.T. Edmonds at 864-8035. For information about horse properties, or just the New Mexico Horse scene in general, visit my website, or contact me any time by email at Laura@LauraWarden.com or call my cell phone at (505)869-7223.

Popejoy Hall, on the University of New Mexico campus, is one of the cultural highlights of Albuquerque.

Popejoy is the grandest multi-use theater in NM, and serves as the home of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the Ovation Series at Popejoy Hall. The Popejoy season always includes a variety of performances, including performances by local organizations as well as Broadway touring companies. Music, dance, and theatre all have their place on the Popejoy stage.

Some upcoming highlights include

1. the ballet Giselle, performed by the St. Petersburg ballet on Feb. 8, 2008
2. Shakespeare's The Tempest on Feb. 22, 20008
3. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams, on Feb. 26, 2008
4. The musical Peter Pan on March 7, 2008
5. The Duke Ellington Orchestra on March 20, 2008
6. The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra performing Brahms' Requiem March 28-30
7. The Broadway touring company performing the musical Annie April 4-6
8. The Jose Limon Dance Company on April 23.
9. The new musical I Love a Piano May 2-4
10. The Broadway touring company of Spamalot, the 2005 Tony Award winning musical

Above are just a very few of the upcoming dance, music, and theatre performances to look forward at Popejoy Hall. Come check it out!

An all-green community is currently being built in Albuquerque, NM. La Cuentista, a custom home development is designed to exist in harmony with the environment, and may well be Albuquerque's first "all green" community.

A recent article in the Albuquerque Journal featured this new home development on Albuquerque's West Side, in which seven custom home builders have pledged to abide by the minimum requirements to be certified by Build Green New Mexico.

The guidelines are based on those established by the National Association of Homes Builders, and tailored to suit the New Mexico climate and environment, and deal with seven categories of features:

1. Lot preparation and design
2. Resource efficiency
3. Homeowner education
4. Global impact
5. Water efficiency and conservation
6. Indoor environmental quality
7. Energy efficiency

The developers are trying to have the community as whole function in an environmentally-friendly fashion, by planting indigenous greenery, allocating nearly a thrid of the total area for open space and waling paths, installing highly efficent streetlights, and controlling erosion and runoff. Individual homes are targeting energy efficiency and an eco-friendly lifestyle by reducing the use of toxic paints, adhesives, and finishes, for example. Energy-efficient appliances, low-flow toilets, and recirculating water heaters with timers are other items emphasized within the homes.

Homes in La Cuentista will all be at least 2000 square feet in size, and will be priced from $180 per square foot. The builders involved in the project, according to the Albuquerque Journal, are Maxwell Custom Builders, Homes by Marie, Lee Michael Homes, Homes by New Vistas, Keystone Homes, Ryley West Custom Builders and Sun Mountain Construction.

It's great to see so many Albuquerque builders getting on the bandwagon for a greener, more eco-friendly lifestyle; it's a plus for homebuyers and for the environment, too!

For more about Albuquerque real estate, visit my website, www.laurawarden.com, or call me any time!