Becky Behrens

Well nobody knows for sure how these rules are going to effect us in Western Colorado. I think the national economy will play a part in our future, as well. The oil and gas companies are cutting back, but not pulling out at this time. Homes are still projected to appreciate, just not as fast as we have been used to. So basically things are looking to slow down for a little while, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Long-term numbers tell a different story

Second-largest gas producer to run half as many rigs locally

Rent expected to plateau as vacancy rate eases slightly

Well, the new rules are out and they were followed by announcements from the local companies that they were scaling back their operations over this coming year. On the flip side, the oil and gas companies are taking this to the State Legislature in the beginning of next year. Also, from what I've been hearing this means no more guaranteed overtime for some of their employees. I have included a link to the new rules and regulations if you want to read them, they are 85 pages long.

New Rules for the Oil and Gas Industry, effective 4/1/09

Local Newspaper article on new rules and regulations

Local Newspaper Article - Energy Fight goes to Legislature

We had our weekly meeting here at the office today and we had our in-house lender come and give us an update. The word on the street is that rates look like they will continue to go down and could even get below 5% by the beginning of next year. So if you are looking to refinance or buy a home this is good news!

You might find this article from Business Week interesting - Refinancing your Mortgage

I know I'm getting this information to you a bit late this month. Sorry! The good news is that I should have November's Stats in a couple of weeks.

I would encourage you to view the graphs with these statistics at My Other Blog.

The Summary for October 2008 looks like this -

• October was a very slow month for real estate in Grand Junction. However after the election business picked up, at least for our office.
• 159 homes sold. Also, we went from average days on the market(DOM) to average months on the market and that was at 4.2 average months.
• In October, inventory was down considerably for homes priced lower than $450,000.
• The average price of the homes sold this month went down slightly by $4,002 to $246,787.

Disclaimer, I get the monthly statistics from my broker and his numbers take into account the expired listings and therefore slightly differ from my weekly statistics

I've been waiting for the New Rules to finally come out and according to our local newspaper they should be out next week. It will definitely be interesting to see what the new rules are and how they affect the Oil and Gas Industry in Western Colorado. I have included a link to the article below.

Daily Sentinel-New Oil and Gas Rules