Kent Shelman

Yes it's finally here, the Annual Pueblo Association of Home Builder's, Parade of Homes. It's time to be the proverbial Looky Loo, and go see all the new homes!

As an appraiser / broker, I'm often asked what adds value to a home. Here are a few things to consider while visiting these new model homes. Today's modern floor plans should be very flexible in terms of the types of occupants that can comfortably inhabit the home. The core family has been changing for several years now, the "Baby Boomers" are getting older, and people are in general living longer. The make up of a modern day family, often includes a grandparent or two, a son in law or daughter in law and even grandkids living in the grandparent's home. So homes that can accommodate these flexible family units have a much greater market appeal! That should translate into shorter days on market and a higher value for both the builder and the reseller.

Another popular trend in housing these days is more emphasis is being placed on spaces that transition from the inside to the outside. Porches, patios and decks are getting larger, more functional and utilize all kinds of new materials. They often have large windows and glass doors that are movable and can moved or opened to accomindate changing weather conditions and be used year round, this is cool stuff! Televisions shows, networks such as Home and Garden TV, large retailers and home centers are bombarding the consumer with advertising for these areas. The Home Centers are packed full of new types of materials and appliances to create these new spaces. I don't see this as a fad, and we have a very good climate here in Pueblo, Colorado, where home owners can easily use transitional areas nine months of year or more. Why not take advantage of it? Having good transitional areas make sense for all price ranges from entry level homes to the very high end ones if done appropriately.

Home buyers should look for homes that have consistent quality throughout the home. Putting very high end quality cabinets and fixtures in just the kitchen of what is just otherwise an average quality home is not a good investment. It is what we appraiser's often call an over improvement or that it is super adequate item. Also, adding things like over the top "premium" landscaping in a neighborhood of just typical landscaping will not yield a dollar for dollar return on your investment either. Over improving a single element of a home with respect to other elements of a home is not a good financial decision for either a builder or a home owner doing remodeling and upgrading of a home, although I see it happen all the time. Use a balanced attack when upgrading a home to maximize your investment.

Enjoy the parade again this year, the builder's, brokers and Pueblo Home Builder's Association staff went to a lot of effort to make it successful.

-Kent

Much like our own financial tightening to the family budget, budget crunches are impacting the Pueblo West Committee of Architecture. With the down turn in new residential construction application in Pueblo West, comes reduced revenues to fund the Pueblo West (COA). Those funds are used to operate and staff the Committee of Architectural.

The funds are used not only to review the new construction starts but to manage and enforce all of Pueblo West's Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions (CC&R's) set forth by the original developer's master plan. If funding is not secured for the COA's operation in the coming years (2009 and beyond) the Committee may go defunct and "Pueblo West's CC&R's" will become unenforceable. The impact of this loss will be irreversible and have a sizable negative impact on Pueblo West's property values in my opinion, as a real estate appraiser and broker.

All of the COA services that the residents of Pueblo West have come to depend upon will effectively go away. Potential home buyer's and business owners will choose to locate in other well planned, pristine communities with with their Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions intact instead of Pueblo West. Pueblo West will loose it's competitive advantage in attracting and retaining property owners, that will surely effect property values and our quality of life as residents of this community.

Examples of the services we will loose are; ensuring residential and commercial properties are properly maintained, landscaped and utilized in harmonious compatible ways with neighboring properties. Enforcement of weed control, eliminating junk cars and debris from home sites will simply not happen. Land uses (residential and commercial) will not be as compatible and complementary as before. For example, lower quality manufactured housing would be allowed to pop up next door to premium homes in even the most established neighborhoods such as Liberty Point and the Desert Hawk Golf Course Area.

Another issue is approximately 2/3rds of Pueblo West is zoned Agricultural, the least restrictive zoning available. This means property owners on acreage sites will be able to operate businesses such as construction and trucking companies, automotive repair shops, small farms and live stock operations next door to established residential homes. I would expect Pueblo West would eventually have a patch work of older premium homes, lower end homes and small businesses all intermixed without any continued benefit of the Pueblo West original master plan, making it similar to the Pueblo County Mesa area and all of it's notorious planning issues. Pueblo County government is currently under staffed with only one land use inspector and no additional funds to begin to manage the needs of Pueblo West's nearly 30,000 residents. So even the enforcement of the greatly reduced, minimal zoning standards by the county is very impractical.

Funding of the COA, should it not be always self sufficient, was provided for years ago (in the 1980's) for just this scenario by the developer and it's successors. Back then the balance of the developer's unsold properties were deeded over to the Pueblo West Metro Board and a the board passed a resolution stating that a portion of the land sale proceeds were to go to fund the COA as needed and then to other needs such as road improvements. Since the COA had been self sufficient up until this last year (2007) all of the land proceeds have been put into the the Metro Boards general fund and spent on other needs such as roads and other special projects. No "rainy day funds" of the millions of dollars of decades of land sales were ever set aside and now land sales have also been greatly reduced with the down turn of the real estate market. Additionally there is a diminishing supply of the developers available lots for sale today.

There are many tough questions to answer about the future of the Pueblo West Committee of Architecture and hopefully the community will see the need for it's continued operation and funding. I encourage residents and business owners of Pueblo West to voice their support of the COA to the Pueblo West Metro Board.