About Dolores County, CO

As a self-employed business person, you already know the ups and downs of being in business for yourself. You love the control and the flexibility, but may worry about generating a steady stream of income. It turns out that banks also worry about that income stream when it comes to considering you for a mortgage.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to help achieve your dream of owning a Denver home.

• Think ahead when filing your tax returns. In the current environment, banks want to look at your average income based on two years of income tax returns. Although it might help lower your tax liability to deduct all of your business expenses, don't make your net income so low that you don't qualify for a mortgage.
• Watch your credit score. It might be tempting to charge lots of new equipment on your credit card, but you could be harming your credit score and your ability to qualify for a mortgage. If you must buy business related items, try to wait until after you've closed on your mortgage.
• Build your bank account. It's expensive running a business and paying a mortgage. Lenders want to know you have a solid cash foundation to cover all of your expenses. Plus, you'll need to have money available for a sizable down payment and closing expenses.
• Have your paperwork in order. When you work for somebody else, you have to provide W-2s as proof of income. When you work for yourself, it gets trickier. You'll need to sign a Form 4506 which allows lenders to request your tax forms directly from the IRS and you may also need to furnish a month's worth of receipts. You could be asked for a list of clients or other sources of cash flow. Find out what the lender is going to require from you as a business owner, and then have that paperwork ready when you request a good faith estimate.
• Meet your prospective lender in person. When you run your own business, your time is one of your most valuable assets. But take some time out of your busy schedule to invest in yourself, and meet personally with a mortgage broker or prospective lenders. You can discuss all aspects of your business, answer any questions directly, and consider options that might be more effective for you because you've sat down and discussed your unique situation in-depth with a professional.

If you're a self-employed business person who is ready to buy a Denver home, our team of real estate experts at Bandy Homes can answer your questions and show you some terrific homes in Parker; real estate in Castle Rock, , including the two communities of homes in Castle Pines; and properties in the Denver Metro Area, including a wide variety of affordable homes in Littleton.

Marianne Bandy

Consider relocation to Denver, Colorado.

Lone Tree CO Real Estate Trivia

Did you know ~

• 21 houses have sold so far this year in Lone Tree
• the number last year was 29 sold
• 4 of thee 21 houses were sold by a bank (foreclosed property)
• 10 of those houses sold for $500,000 or above
• The lowest price per square foot of a house sold this year was $122/sf
• The highest price per square foot was $440/sf
• There are 110 houses currently on the market (single family residences)
  34 of those 110 houses are for sale in Heritage Hills gated subdivision
• zero houses for sale are foreclosures / bank owned homes
• 33 condos are currently for sale
• condo prices range from $174,900 to $436,062

What's on the market:
Homes for sale in Lone Tree by price range
Homes for sale in Heritage Hills in Lone Tree
Condos and town homes in Lone Tree

*Disclaimer: Data based on information from Metrolist, Inc. for period of 1/1/2009 through 5/1/2009. Metrolist Inc. does not guarantee nor is any way responsible for its accuracy. Content maintained by Metrolist Inc. may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Reported sales were not necessarily listed or sold by Kenna real estate and are intended only to show trends in the area.

Disclaimer: Kenna Real Estate Blog does not guarantee nor is in any way responsible for the accuracy of the information provided herein, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied.

Copyright 2009.© Kenna Real Estate. Rita Burke. Lone TreeTree Real Estate. Lone Tree Realtor Brian Burke and Rita Burke. All Rights Reserved. May 24th 2009. " Lone Tree Real Estate Trivia - Vol 1. 2009".

In our crazy economy, when prices are going up on everything and when income is staying the same or decreasing for many families, it's necessary to find ways to save. Let's face it - most of us have little say in the price of gasoline, electricity, or groceries. A homeowner has to find ways to save money when possible. This is why many shoppers find coupons a necessity.

Most us have great war stories about much we saved at Macy's when the store offered a %-off coupon. For those of you who have studied and mastered the art of using them, coupons can save a bundle. Turn on your local TV station or peruse the Internet - there's always a story about someone who saves $100 week on their grocery bill or feeds a family of eight on a stack of coupons and $20.

The big savers with coupons are the people who collect them, use them (in contrast to those who clip them but don't think of using them until after they expire), and maximize their effectiveness by using multiple offers that might be available. For example, if bacon is on sale for 2/$4.99, a savvy customer might use two $1.00 coupons to reduce the cost per pound to $1.50. In cases where the store doubled or tripled coupons, the cost would fall to $0-.50 per pound. If the sale was to buy a pound of bacon, get a dozen eggs free, you would pull out a coupon for the bacon. If the store had a coupon dispenser that offered the bacon coupons, if you take a few and the expiration date of the coupons is in the future, you can reduce the cost of your bacon purchases for months to come. By expanding this approach to a variety of products in your home, you could realize major savings.

Traditionally, people clipped coupons from their local newspaper or received coupons in the mail. Now that most people have internet access, many coupons can be printed online for use at a "brick and mortar" store or used for online shopping. Online coupons are a bonanza for people who intend to use them but forget to bring them or forget to cut them out.

Say you want to know if a store you are planning on shopping has any coupons available. By typing in, for example, "Bed Bath and Beyond coupons" you might come up with several sites that offer the coupons. In fact, Google search brought up 323,000 sites where you might find coupons. If you want to buy a DVD recorder, you could type in "dvd recorder coupon" and Google would offer you 1,320,000 matches. You could further search by brand to arrive at a more manageable number. Many of the coupons might be expired or have conditions to them, but it's likely you will find some that will help you. Because retailers have to follow a procedure to get their money back, most are careful about accepting expired coupons or ones you try to apply to the wrong product.

Since lots of people have picked up the trick of "Googling for savings." there are numerous websites devoted to offering online coupons. Popular sites include Coupon Cabin, Retail Me Not, Coupon Mountain, Dealtaker, Yahoo Coupons - the list goes on.

Regardless of how you get your coupons and how often you use them, the process can save you money and add a bit of adventure to shopping. When you're shopping for your new Parker Colorado home, you probably won't find coupons but a good Realtor® can tell you where the deals are in the Denver Metro area. At Bandy Homes, we are dedicated to finding you an affordable home. Marianne Bandy Relocate to Denver

Schwab to add 500 jobs in Douglas County: Charles Schwab Corp. will bring 500 new jobs to Colorado by 2011. The San Francisco-based brokerage (NASDAQ: SCHW), which currently employs 1,300 people in the state, is looking into reorganizing amid the global financial crisis, said Sherri Kroonenberg, senior vice president of Schwab Investor Services. While the company will pare down its total workforce, Schwab's footprint in the state will ultimately be larger.

Schwab will be looking for information-technology specialists with an average salary of $75,000 a year. The positions will be recruited from both inside and outside of the company. Read more about the announcement here: http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/01/12/daily55.html?surround=etf

- anthonyr
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Anthony Rael & Assoc.
Metro Brokers Arvada-Northwest
12191 West 64th Ave, #210
Arvada, CO 80004
(303) 524-3990
www.anthonyrael.com

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Anthony Rael is a Denver Real Estate Agent specializing in relocation, first-time buyers, home property values, residential home sales, Denver Colorado Real Estate & MLS/IDX Listings, single family homes, condos, lofts, short-sale, foreclosed, bank-owned & investment properties. Providing professional & trustworthy real estate services to buyers & sellers throughout the Denver metro area including Arvada, Brighton, Broomfield, Denver, Golden, Highland/Sloan's Lake, Highlands Ranch, Lakewood, Louisville, Longmont, Thornton, Westminster, Wheat Ridge, Adams County, Denver County, Douglas County & Jefferson County in Colorado.

The average home price in Metro Denver increased +2% in the full year 2005 to the full year 2006. Comparing 2006 to 2007, the average home price across the metro dropped 3%, to $303,000. The average price in the first three quarters of 2008 was $272,000 vs. similar period of 2007 was $308,000: an 11% decrease. These numbers will be slightly different than Metrolist, as they are just Denver Metro and don't include outlying areas like Colorado Springs or Boulder.

Much of the decline is a mix issue. For example, sales volume of homes over 4,000 square feet has plummeted in the last twelve months. Middle-market homes have generally been steady in their sales volume. Very inexpensive homes under 1,000 square feet have greatly increased their sales volume. You can explain it to your clients like this: Imagine you own a car dealership and you sell Chevys and Cadillacs. If you sold 50 of each type of car last month, but then you sold 75 Chevys and 25 Cadillacs this month, the average price at your dealership would have dropped quite a bit. This would be true even if you didn't change the price of the cars. This is what we mean by a mix of what is sold issue.

Our guess is that the buyers of the 4,000 square foot homes are sitting on the sidelines since very few people really need that much space - it is a decision that can be postponed. They are probably waiting for the bad news in the headlines to blow over and for the rates on jumbo loans to return to more reasonable levels. While they wait, the investors are snapping up bargain REO properties to use as rentals.

This market behavior is likely to continue for at least another nine to eighteen months. However, once the REO volume starts to decline a little, and the jumbo rates come down, we'll see a reversal to the mix problem. Suddenly, the pent-up demand at the high end of the market will be unleashed, and we'll finally start to run out of bargain basement REO homes. Using the car dealer analogy, we'll be selling 25 Chevys and 75 Cadillacs each month. You can guess what will happen to the average prices - in some neighborhoods they will increase as fast as they have dropped in the last few years.

The attached chart shows different neighborhoods in our region. Each region has the neighborhood's name and the percentage of sales in the last twelve months that were either short sales or bank-owned properties. The second line has the price change the twelve months from October 2007 to September 2008 vs. the twelve months immediately preceding. Next, you'll see the average home price in the last twelve months and the average days on market (DOM) in the last twelve months. There had to be at least twenty sales in the last year for an area to be included. The numbers are more reliable in areas where there were more sales.

Source: Your Castle Real Estate analysis, MLS data

(c) Copyright 2008, Your Castle Real Estate