Bob Maiocco

Firelight Highlands Ranch Colorado Market Update homes sold under contract and new listings October 21

October in Firelight has been pretty steadily plodding along: there are currently 12 homes under contract in Firelight. Of which two contracted since my last update (in the last 7 days)

3267 Ashworth Avenue, Highlands Ranch, a Shea Sage on open space contracted after only 11 days on the market.

And A Beazer two story after 46 days on the market that sits on over a quarter of an acre (0.27 a m/l) which makes it a contender for one of the largest yard in Firelight!

And we have three new listings including a Shea Tarryall on open space priced at $269,900.00 at 10647 CHERRYBROOK although it’s incorrectly entered in the MLS as a Denver listing…

No closings in the last seven days in Firelight so here’s how it looks as of October 21:

We had some quality activity in Firelight this week. While historically October isn't a big month for market activity I'm pleased to post that there are currently 10 homes under contract in Firelight. Of which three contracted since my last update (in the last 10 days)

2649 Westgate, Firelight, Highlands Ranch, CO is under contract after only 15 DOM (Days on market)

10733 Ashford Circle, Firelight, Highlands Ranch, CO is under contract after 55 DOM

2794 Pemberly Ave, Firelight, Highlands Ranch, CO is finally under contract after 195 DOM after almost $50k in price reductions over the last 6 months.

There has been one closing in Firelight in the last few days:

10688 Riverbrook Circle, Firelight, Highlands Ranch, CO, a two story Berkeley greyrock sold after 30 DOM for $305,000.

Overall we have 40 homes active on the market in Firelight ranging from $259,900 up to $799,999. For a closer analysis of the market conditions, to discuss how we adapt our efforts to timely and specific Firelight market information, or to schedule a showing of any of the 42 homes for sale please logon to http://www.myhomebuyingresouce.com/

I recently researched a wealth of information about Tuscany South in Aurora, CO for a Seller client of mine who I have known for several years. I really wanted to pinpoint why this Seller has had so much difficulty selling their beautiful perfectly maintained home that we feel has been priced very well.

So I started by analyzing and graphing the data from all of Aurora South. Now Aurora South is huge. It's in Arapaho County and adjacent to the Denver areas's second largest core of office space, the Denver Tech Center. It's a major feeder area for the hundred of thousands of professionals who want a short commute while also having excellent schools-- namely Cherry Creek, arguable the best school district in Colorado. So, I was pretty sure that mapping the entire sold results for the city was going to be fruitless however, I was pleased to see a few easily recognizable trends:

It's easy to recognize the seasonal dip in sales that begins in August and starts ramping up again in March. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the overall performance this year has been relatively steady with no material decrease in sales volume, price or even number of expireds.

Well that's all fine and dandy but not much help to my Seller in Tuscany South who is absolutely going to take a large loss after buying at the very peak in pricing back in 2005. So I have now graphed the Tuscany South results and here's the bad news:

One of the things about blogging real estate information is that it's a learning process for both reader and writer. I've been selling homes and maintaining a market conditions report for my own office for years-- actually I started in 1996. But to produce something that's worthy of sharing with the public is a different story. So I've been experimenting with various graphs and statistics that I think are helpful and plotting them with different styles.

This graph is for Firelight, Highlands Ranch, Colorado and gives a visual indicator of what's been going on. Although Firelight hasn't been experiencing the crazy boom days of 2005 anymore it still performs pretty well. In my opinion this is because of the intrinsic value that Highlands Ranch offers along with the specific great attributes that Firelight offers. Take a look and let me know your thoughts. Feel free to send me an e-mail at BobMaiocco@kw.com or visit my website at www.MyHomeBuyingResource.com and I'll share with you my trending analysis as well as how I use what I know about the market to position my clients to take advantage of any situation.

Firelight in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Yesterday I gave an overall summary of recent market activity in Highlands Ranch and Today I want to focus on Firelight. Firelight is a terrific community in South Highlands Ranch with many great features including fast access to the new Southridge Rec Center, http://www.hrcaonline.org/Fac_Southridge.asp which is loaded with amenities, great public schools within the Douglas County School District: http://www.dcsdk12.org/portal/page/portal/DCSD including:

Mountain Vista High School - grades 9 - 12 boundary map MountainVistaHighSchool Mountain Vista High School Feeder Doc Size: 238.50 KB

Mountain Ridge Middle School - grades 7 - 8 see the boundary map Mountain Ridge Middle School Doc Size: 331.10 KB

Copper Mesa Elementary School - grades K - 6, see the boundary map Copper Mesa Elementary Doc Size: 131.74 KB

Heritage Elementary School - grades K - 6, see the boundary map Heritage Elementary Doc Size: 160.43 KB

I'm a big fan of Firelight and the roughly 1,850 homes and active listings ranging from $259k to $799,999 as of October 2, 2007. Homebuilders include Beazer, Berkeley, Joyce, Richmond, Ryland, and Shea Homes.

This evening as I review the market in Firelight I'm pleased to announce that the results from September are fairly promising. We had nine closings in Firelight in September ranging from $249,900 up to 572,000. And although one of the new listings to Firelight contracted very fast (7 days) the average is now 57 Days on Market (DOM) and the average closed price to list price is a reduction of 2.11%.

There are two new listings this week: A Richmond Flatiron backing the open space that leads to the Rec Center at $598,500 and a Beazer Bradbury for $588,000.

Four new under contracts in the last week so here's how Firelight's inventory looks overall:

42 homes for sale ranging from $259,000 up to $799,999. For a closer analysis of the market conditions or to schedule a showing of any of the 42 homes for sale please logon to http://www.myhomebuyingresource.com/

As we get closer and closer to the Big Pumpkin Holiday. I thought I would relay the anouncement I received from the Highlands Ranch Chamber of Commerce. They are in need of volunteers and sponsors for the annual Treat or Treat Street!

This event will be held on Saturday, October 27th, from 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. at the Eastridge Rec Center. For more information contact the Chamber office at 303.791.3500 or cchrinfo@highlandsranchchamber.org to be a sponsor or to volunteer.

What a great way to promote your local business while meeting your neighbors and having a great time! I hope to see you there.

Anyone who knows me knows I eat a lot of Pizza. In fact, you could even call me a pizza aficionado. Or not, since nobody actually talks that way. But believe me I love pizza.

I was thrilled when a family I recently moved to Bailey invited me to their grand opening of the Pier 49 Pizzeria in Aspen Park, Colorado. If you're not familiar with Aspen Park, it's technically a Conifer address on Highway 285 in a beautiful alpine setting. Take a look at the map:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=25597%2BConifer%2BRd.%2BConifer,%2BCO&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=51.754532,81.738281&ie=UTF8&ll=39.5434,-105.289128&spn=0.012427,0.019956&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1

So on opening night I brought my wife Alisa, my two little boys and my visiting mother-in-law and we feasted on some of the best pizza any of us had had in many years.

We started with the Lombard, Pier 49 Pizza's most popular pizza. It's loaded with hickory flavored barbecue sauce topped with southwestern grilled chicken, a bunch of different cheeses, and topped with onions. I was to die for and super tasty.

oh my, it's good.

But then we also added a Garlic Festival! Every one of us calls it our new favorite. We're big garlic lovers and this one is loaded! Savory garlic butter sauce topped with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. We added some chicken to it for an awesome meal.

What a great establishment. We are so lucky to have a great pizza place. Swing by and try it out! While you're there, be sure to say, Hi." To Rick and Jan Lange or their son Cody-- who is working way too hard over there making sure every pizza is a masterpiece in feasting!

Highlands Ranch finished September very strong relative to all of the "Sky is Falling" news in Real Estate lately. Our average price for a sold home in Highlands Ranch and Lone Tree combined increased quite a bit from the end of August. We started September at about $343k and finished at about $383k. Although we had fewer sales in September than we did in August, that is a typical seasonal pattern.

I generally help home sellers understand that when the number of new listings decreases at the same time the number of under contract homes increase-- it's a good time to list their home to sell. That happened twice in September in Highlands Ranch. The second week of September we had a good dip in new listings while 3 weeks in a row our new under contracts increased over the previous week in September and even beat August's performance. In fact, the number of new listings for the week ending 9-30 was the lowest increase to inventory since early summer! If the number of new listings continues to decrease we'll have to start calling this a neutral market instead of the Buyer's market that is on everyone's lips. Overall the total level of inventory is about the same level it was at the end of July. Interestingly, the average list price is up quite a bit and very close to the highest level of the year! This could explain the end of the trend of more and more homes under contract.

Overall, Highlands Ranch continues to exhibit very typical Supply and Demand traits. The market is very fair right now and those who are willing and able to consider and react to all of the facts are getting very reliable results.

This analysis is based upon my ongoing research and is provided as a summary of the entire market in Highlands Ranch and Lone Tree. This post was created almost exclusively from Metrolist (MLS)facts. I also track and provide information on individual neighborhoods. Neighborhood information is much more valuable, frequently has significantly different trending than the overall picture and I'm happy to share it with you free and with no obligation. Let me know where you'd like me to focus and I'll put together a very comprehensive analysis that is easily understood and helpful. Logon to http://www.myhomebuyingresource.com/, send me your e-mail address and I'll respond promptly. Thank you.

Not a day goes by without someone asking me about the sky falling. Is real estate crashing? What's with all the foreclosures? Are rates about to shoot through the roof? And frankly, to watch the news, I'm amazed at the negativity and fear that the old school media is spreading around.

Here's the deal as I see it. The fundamentals of real estate continue to apply. They never stopped applying. The three most important thing about real estate are: Okay, everyone together now:

1.) Location

2.) Location

3.) Location

If you buy right, for the right reasons, within the age old qualification strategies then you don't have anything to worry about (assuming of course that you haven't been fired, run over, or otherwise tragedy stricken) Where the trouble comes from is those who got in a bidding war in Aurora, Colorado in July of '05 for a property with no great attributes compared to the neighbors. Then when they financed that home with a 3/1 COFI ARM that teased them with a starting payment of $1100/month for a $500k mortgage for the first three months and that's all they could qualify for at the time-- then the payments went up $100/month every month for the last year while the excitement for the neighborhood wained-- that's big trouble.

It's dissapointing that real estate professionals whether brokers or lenders participated in getting homes bought with some of those ridiculous mortgage programs but here's my summary:

Real estate, whether as a career or as an investment in a home is a long term proposition. Real Estate is not particularly liquid and comes with many barriers to liquidity. Homeowners, brokers and lenders who made short term decisions on real estate deals in the last 3-5 years using less than adequate thought processes are now facing problems, whether it's brokers having career problems, lenders looking for jobs or homeowners having cash flow problems. the real estate market has a knack for reinforcing the fundamental principals of the game-- the old borrowing ratios work: 28 % of your gross income can be used for your mortgage and you shouldn't exceed 36% of your gross income for all of your monthly obligations. Find the best location you can afford and finance with a 30 year fixed rate, choose wisely and live in it, enjoy life and watch your equity grow.