Jerry Becker - Littleton, Colorado

In today's Rocky Mountain News, it was reported that metro Denver's home sales average prices fell by only 1.1% in November, making it the best performing city in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. In the twelve months ending with November, Denver performed better than all large markets except Dallas, the report stated. According to them, Denver area prices fell by only 4.3% for that preceding 12 month period. Several things were cited as contributing to Denver's continued improvement; lack of new home inventory and starts, declining inventory, lack of the huge price run up experienced by other cities, lower jobless rate, and the net increase in population. While it may sound dumb to be celebrating even when the figures show a decline, one has to remember that these are figures are comparing average sales prices. Averages are determined by the mix and in Denver the lower priced tier of homes have been selling like hot cakes. To be sure, most of these are being snapped up by investors, but they are still selling. The middle ranges are holding their own while the high end has been building inventory because of slow sales. Combining all of these numbers give us an average. Readers should not be too concerned with the bottom line number but the mix of sales that gave us that number. As many buyers are discovering, they have some healthy competition for quality homes, in some of their price ranges

As a Realtor, if you have a client whose property was used for a meth lab or if you are the owner of such a property, this may be of interest to you. Property owner victims of meth labs have found the cost of cleaning up their properties to run into the tens of thousands of dollars. To make matters worse, many insurance companies are refusing to pay the claims for these cost because they deem losses to be caused by an illegal activity, even when the property owner had no knowledge of what the tenants were up to. There's a Denver law firm called Frankl Law Firm that has had success in winning court cases against insurance companies that refuse to pay these claims. In fact, they're trying to carve out a niche practice in dealing with these types of cases. Now, you may not be in Denver, however, many times companies that have success in certain areas of law tend to network and lend assistance to other legal firms around the country, that are engaged in similar defenses. It may be worth your while to contact Frankl at 1-866-300-2051 and inquire if they can refer a law firm in your area. Hopefully, it's a call you'll never have to make.


Jerry Becker
Jerry Becker & Associates/Metro Brokers
303-933-0900

In this crazy real estate market we're in, I know how easy it is to get scared when you read something in the paper or see it on TV. When you do, first ask yourself, 'is this a local story or are they reporting on a national trend?' There's a big difference because here in Denver things are actually getting better. Our inventory is down and many neighborhoods are showing price appreciation. The main point I wanted to make is that don't necessarily take the figures you see at face value. I recently attended a meeting on sales trends where the speaker was making the same point. For example, he stated how the Castle Rock average sales prices were down 16% in 2008, when compared to last year. When you get into the figures, they tell a different story. By breaking the figures down you get a whole different take on the market. Let me explain; for homes that were larger than 4,000 square feet, the average sales prices were down 73.1%, for homes in the 2,400 to 3,000 square foot size, sales were actually up 28.6%, and homes that were in the 1,800 to 2,400 square foot range, sales were up 1.5%. When viewed in this manner, one can see that the average to slightly average sized homes were actually doing quite nicely. There were a lot of large homes built in Castle Rock over the last 15 years or so, and those homes aren't moving very fast. In fact, it's the same all over the Denver metro area. Presently, it's estimated there is an average of two and a half year supply of homes valued at one million dollars or higher. When you factor in the drop of this segment of the market it tends to drag down the averages and make it appear an area of town isn't doing that well. Combine that with the increase in sales of the lower price ranges and it's easy to see how numbers can show a declining trend. If you have more questions about this, contact your real estate professional

Cherokee Ranch & Castle's 2008 Performing Arts Series will be drawing to a close with five Holiday concerts. Tickets are still available on a limited basis for these shows. For more detailed information on each concert, go to my Littleton blog at www.LivingLittleton.info. Included in the price of the tickets are; tours of the castle, wine tasting with appetizers, dinner buffet, hour-long concert, and a dessert and coffee reception. Tickets are going fast so hurry to take advantage of this special Holiday experience.

When I'm helping someone relocate to the Denver area, I occasionally have a buyer that's just amazed about how we handle possession after closing. Here in Denver, the custom is for the new buyer to give the seller 2-3 days to move out after closing. Colorado isn't an escrow state, but a table funding state. What that means, is that when an offer to purchase has been agreed ed to between the buyers and sellers, the buyers through their real estate broker start the process of taking the transaction to completion. This includes doing the inspections, negotiating any inspection issues with the sellers, ordering the appraisal, reviewing the title work, and shepherding the buyers through the loan approval process. All this is done with the eye on meeting the closing date specified in the original offer to purchase. During this time, the seller's broker is guiding and giving advice to the seller, as needed. Once the loan is approved the buyers and sellers meet, usually at a title company's office, to do the closing. At this time, all the documents are signed for the transfer of the real estate and the origination of the new loan. Once this happens, the closing is done and over. No adjustments are made by the lender, buyers, or sellers. At this time the buyers own the home and are entitled to immediate possession.

Sometimes buyers come from states where once the keys are handed over to the buyers, the sellers have already vacated the property. They can't understand why, as a buyer, they would allow someone two to three days free "rent" as they move out of the property. In the market they just came from, they would go right from the closing to moving into their new home. While I admit this may sound strange, it's pretty much standard operation procedure, here in Denver. There are some definite benefits to this type of system. What if the buyers default at the last minute, through a job loss or change of heart? What if they were declined for the loan at the last minute? To protect our sellers, we need to move up the date for loan approval as much as possible. I think having that date be a few days before closing is not in our sellers best interest. If you've been in this business for any length of time, I'm sure you've represented buyers or sellers that were in a chain. What I meant is, someone was selling to someone else who was selling, who was also relying on somone else to close on their home. If all these closings were set to occur on the same day with all of these sellers showing up at closings with their belongins on the moveing van, only to have the first people in the chanin fail to close, you can see what a mess it could become.

At the same time, I can appreciate how nice is can be to have the house vacated and ready for the new buyers right after closing. You don't have to worry about a seller taking something that was to be left behind, as specified in the purchase contract. There's nothing worse than to get a call from your buyers informing you that the sellers took the refrigerator that was supposed to be included. There's also that piece of mind that you know the sellers didn't damage anything on the way out.

As I said before, I can see advantages to both systems. What system does your region use and what tips do you have to minimize problems?