You will never have to pay to be listed as a top neighbor. Period. That important detail clarified, let's discuss how we arrive at two "top neighbors" for a given region:
Localism is a bustling collection of hyper-local communities, and the top neighbors should reflect those members who are most active. When ranking users in a given region, several factors are considered. To get your foot in the proverbial door, you need to have posted at least one "Localism" article or photo for the region.
The very best way to quickly rise to #1 is to post high-quality local content. Keeping a steady strem of incoming posts and photos will massively tilt the scales in your favor.
What doesn't count toward the top neighbor ranking? ActiveRain points and community sponsorships. The top neighbor spots will always go to the most active members in a region. We want to create a level playing field that encourages the growth of communities — talent and dedication are required to win the day.
The Durango real estate market has seen more and more foreclosures. The promise of a couple different banking and mortgage programs stated that the short term process of foreclosures would be held up. The BPO activity as well as the continued Durango property foreclosure listings has remained steady. The surrounding areas in Pagosa Springs and Cortez are still showing higher numbers than the local Durango homes. On a general note the foreclosure properties across the nation have seen a rise over the last several months. The article below shows the highest numbers of foreclosure in seven months.
Daily Real Estate News | Friday, November 11, 2011
Lenders are picking up the pace of foreclosures again, as the foreclosure rate posted its highest level in seven months, RealtyTrac reported Thursday.
A total of 230,678 foreclosure filings were issued in October, a 7 percent increase over September. However, last month’s filings--which include default notices, auctions, and bank repossessions--were still 31 percent below October 2010 levels.
“The October foreclosure numbers continue to show strong signs that foreclosure activity is coming out of the rain delay we’ve been in for the past year as lenders corrected foreclosure paperwork and processing problems,” James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement. “However, recent state court rulings and new state laws keep changing the rules of the foreclosure game on the fly, creating more uncertainty in the housing market and threatening to prolong the road to a robust real estate recovery.”
In October, lenders repossessed 67,624 homes, up 4 percent from September. On a month-over-month basis, the increase in REO activity was even more pronounced in some states, such as Indiana (73 percent), New Jersey (48 percent), Oregon (45 percent), and Michigan (40 percent).
But the states with the highest overall foreclosure rates are Nevada (one in every 180 homes had a foreclosure filing in October), California (one in every 243 homes), and Arizona (one in every 259 homes).
The Durango Real Estate market has always been or had a strong "rentership" presence. The higher housing cost with lower employment pay has kept a strong rental market. The cost of a single family property compared to the rent allowance has always made it difficult to afford to purchase a property for investment rental. The foreclosures popping up in the present market can provide some opportunity to purchase at a price that seems better for a rental property. Looking at the CAP rate of a rental property in the Durango real estate market compared to areas in the midwest perhaps shows a very different situation. Below is a national look at this idea, with some very interesting facts on what it takes to make this idea one of Profit!
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Well, there’s at least one big Wall Street banker that’s betting on the United States becoming a “rentership” society: Morgan Stanley.
The company released a report just a few weeks ago saying now is a great time for institutional investors to snap up distressed single-family homes and turn them into long-term rental units. The company says the properties don’t compete with the classic apartment rental property, so investors don’t have to worry about cannibalizing their multifamily rental investment portfolios to take advantage of the huge opportunities in single-family rental property ownership. What’s more, Morgan Stanley doesn’t see this shift to rentership as a temporary waypoint while the country sorts out its housing problems; it sees this as a fundamental shift in how the United States will define itself into the future.
“America is moving away from a home ownership society and towards a rentership society,” the company says in its report.
To emphasize the point, one of the report’s authors, Oliver Chang of Morgan Stanley’s Housing and Securitized Products Strategy division, said in a video interview (above, after a 30-second commercial), “This is really the first time in history where there’s an opportunity for institutions to own single-family rental properties as part of a larger asset allocation strategy.”
The reason for the shift to rentals, according to the company?
Home price declines: not only are millions of homes available to investors at deeply discounted pricing but the low prices are changing consumer attitudes on housing as an investment
Hurdles to buying: down payment requirements, higher FICO score thresholds, and income verification are making it harder for households to even consider buying
Costs of ownership: without home price inflation, costs like property taxes, home owner association dues, maintenance and repair make ownership less attractive
Demographic effects: Gen Y growth is heading up while baby boomer households are downsizing
Unemployment, labor insecurity and mobility: long unemployment durations make labor mobility (and thus renting) more important
Morgan Stanley says the U.S. home ownership rate, which has fallen to about 64 percent from close to 68 percent at its peak, is really closer to 60 percent when you factor in home owners who’ve stopped paying on their mortgage and only remain in their house because the bank hasn’t finished processing their foreclosure yet. Once these cases make it through the system, they’ll move to the renter side of the equation.
When they do move to the other side of the equation, they’ll become renters of single-family houses, not of multifamily apartment units. That’s because these households, which tend to be a little older and often with children, want a single-family house in the suburbs, not a unit in an apartment building in the city. So, these households will be providing a big share of the demand for single-family rental houses into the future without necessarily adding demand to apartment rentals in the city.
To be sure, many of these households might like to buy again rather than rent given the historically low interest rates and deeply discounted home prices, but the reality is that many of these households simply can’t pass the credit score threshold. Financing is hard to get for the most creditworthy households today, so for credit-impaired households, renting is the only option.
Morgan Stanley projects some 7.5 million more foreclosures over the next five years, what it calls “liquidated” houses, providing a golden opportunity for institutional investors to snap up properties for their portfolio and get into the long-term single-family rental business.
If the company is right, then this is a great opportunity if you work with institutional buyers of real estate, whether on the buying, selling, or property management side. You have tons of inventory coming onto the market to sell to big buyers who will turn these into long-term rentals.
But you might also challenge the company’s basic premise. Is the American Dream really transitioning into a “New Pragmatism,” as the company calls it, under which rental housing is the way of the future?
The fact is, if lenders simply dialed back their underwriting requirements to the sound policies they used before the housing boom, home sales would pick up, inventories would shrink, prices would start heading up in more than a few markets, and that 7.5 million in foreclosed houses Morgan Stanley predicts over the next five years will be a smaller number. And those that want to rent can rent and those that want to buy can buy rather than having to rethink their priorities in a new rentership society.
In any case, a survey that just came out today from Meredith Corp., one of the biggest magazine publishers in the country, finds that home ownership remains all-important to most households. Some of its findings:
of homeowners polled still feel owning a home was a . 86 %good investment
85 % say they feel, “owning a home is one of their proudest accomplishments.”
Of Americans that don’t currently own a home, 69 % agree, “No matter what happens in the U.S. housing market, owning a home is still an important goal in my life.”
The Morgan Stanley report is called “Housing 2.0: The New Rental Paradigm,” and it’s dated Oct. 27, 2011. If you can’t find the report or a summary, you can hear Oliver Chang talking about it in the video above although you have to watch a 30-second commercial before the video comes on.
Reprinted from REALTOR® Magazine Online, October 31, 2011 , with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright October 31, 2011 . All rights reserved. http://realtormag.realtor.org/
There are quite a few restaurants in Durango that are much too expensive to visit on a regular basis so this time of year, they offer specials to the locals that typically don't visit on a regular basis. This is a time of year when the summer tourists for the train are gone and the one's for the ski resort have yet to appear (although, there was snow on the mountains this morning...OUCH).
One restaurant in particular today caught my eye...it is a quaint little european cafe that is located just West of Durango and has picturesque mountain views and a small romantic dining area. They have a spectacular brunch and are know for their desserts.
I personally have had brunch, lunch and dinner here and would highly recoomend it to anyone that would like a quite dinner amoung the glorious mountains of Southwest Colorado. Reservations are suggested.
The locals specials will be offered from October 19, 2010 through November 21, 2010 and will include 10 dinner entree's for $12, the specials will run from 5:00 to 9:00 pm daily.
The Kennebec cafe is located at 4 County Road 124 in beautiful Hesperus, Colorado, please visit their website for additional details on these and more specials www.kennebeccafe.com
It's green in summer, gold in fall and white in winter- Dalton Ranch golf course just minutes north of Duango, Colorado. Our neighborhood has several components, from easy-living condominiums to larger townhomes, family homes, upscale condominiums and luxury homes. There are just a few lots available if building your own home is your dream, and most have great views. One thing that broudht me to this goldf course community 14f years ago was the view- like one of my visiting friends said "Every window is a postcard." She's right- and that is one reason I am still here, enjoying every day in the middle of one of the most scenic river valleys in Colorado.
Wildlife watching and people watching are great spectator sports when you tire of golf, tennis, hiking, biking, river rafting, etc. that are all available nearby. For families, it is close to a great elementary school, Animas Valley Elementary, and the supermarket is within a mile. The golf course has special membership packages right now, and the restaurant is open year round, even when snow covers the course and offers great snowshoeing or cross-country skiing! If you're interested in Dalton Ranch housing, contact me at marlene@horizondurango.com for the latest real estate update.
WE GET USED TO SEEING BALD EAGLES around here- generally sitting in tall trees, or flying. This is the first time I saw a bald eagle walking- and he walked a good deal of the fairway on hole #13 at Dalton Ranch Golf Course. He or she is a younger eagle, not really black, but dark brownish with fluffy white head, foot and tail feathers. Large and not afraid of anything, this eagle watched birds at the bird feeder, then strolled down the cart path to visit one of Dalton's many infamous water hazards, aka, a pond. He stayed for a while, then flew off when the groundskeeper rounded the bend in his cart. Glad I was working at home that morning and caught sight of him!
ActiveRain Corp. is not responsible for the accuracy of the site's content (which is written by members of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network) and does not endorse the views of the real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and others listed here.
ated just West of Durango and has picturesque mountain views and a small romantic dining area. They have a spectacular brunch and are know for their desserts.
