Lonnie Glessner

It was reported this week that there 14% fewer foreclosures completed in Colorado in the first 9 months of the year compared to the first 9 months of 2007. This is the first time we have seen a year over year decline since 2003. Yeah!

Kathi Williams, Director of the Colorado Division of Housing, said she is "cautiously optimistic about the future."

Second, this week TransUnion reported the delinquency rate on mortgages throughout the country as of September 30^th. They define their delinquency rate as at least 2 months behind.

In Colorado our delinquency rate is 3.38% which is 15% below the national average of 3.96%. On average the national delinquency rate is normally around 2%; but has risen considerably in the last 18 months.

As I have said I believe Colorado will be one of the states to Lead our country out of this housing abyss as so often our market is counter-cyclical to the rest of the country.

This data is from NAR's recent study-

•· The average repeat home buyer was 47 with a median household income of $88,200

•· RE agents were viewed as a very useful information source by 81% of buyers who used an agent to buy a home.

•· The typical home buyers search for 10 weeks and viewed 10 homes.

•· 81% of buyers purchased a home with a RE agent.

•· 43% of buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend or family member.

•· 70% of buyers would definitely use their RE agent again or recommend the same agent to others.

The last 2 statistics reveal to me that you can definitely build YOUR business on referrals and repeat business. Your clients like you and trust you!

But, do you communicate to your clients that you like them? The greatest salesman ever who was a car salesman and sold on average 6 cars a day for decades had just 1 tip or strategy-he wrote several personal notes every day that simply said "I like you".

For a huge majority of Realtors and Lenders alike we stay in touch with our clients with postcards and newsletters with sports schedules, recipes, professional info, etc.; but how often do we communicate to our clients that we genuinely like them? For me, not often enough.

I encourage you to tell your clients with phone calls and note cards that you like them. What a great 2009 resolution.

My next Business Success Lunch for Realtors is next Thursday, December 11th at 11:30 to 1:30 PM at SMDRA office in Littleton, CO. The topic is "How to double your income in 90 days" and my speaker is business coach Chuck Blakeman from Team Nimbus West.

Chuck is an amazing guy with lots of knowledge and experience and over 40% of his clients who have taken part in this challenge have doubled or even tripled their income in 90 days. Now some only increase their income by 40% or 50%; but that would be nice too.

Plus, I provide lunch! But, RSVP quickly as the room is half full already. To RSVP please reply to this message or call me at 303.881.6374.

Please, please, please, strongly advise/REQUIRE that your sellers do NOT do a Quit Claim Deed or any other form of ownership change on a house that they are planning on selling soon. I am about to pull my hair out over sellers who do this!

FHA requires a 90 day holding period for the current owners of a property BEFORE that property can go UNDER CONTRACT. Not before it is sold; but before a contract can be written on the home. In October FHA's market share was 33% of all mortgages nationally were a FHA mortgage. A year ago it was about 8%. Plus, many banks follow FHA's rule on this subject on conventional and VA loans as well.

Thus, your listings will be available to far fewer buyers. Your sellers will lose money, especially those who are doing fix and flips as their homes sit longer on the market. And as we all know the longer a home is on the market, the lower the price has to go, resulting in more money lost.

For your fix and flip clients where speed is a necessity, please tell them do NOT change ownership of the property after they buy it as many often do. Currently, I have a seller who bought a home with cash in his name and then transferred the ownership of the home into a LLC a month later. WHY??? Please stop this I BEG you. I don't want to go bald.

In the 3rd quarter S&P/Case-Shiller Index Report it revealed that Denver has had the 3rd best performing real estate market in the country when compared to 19 other large metropolitan areas. Here in the Denver MSA our prices have only dropped 5.4% in the last 12 months. Many large cities have seen double digit price drops with some markets seeing drops of over 25% in the last year.

However, since March 2008, which was our lowest reading for the year, prices have INCREASED 2.8%. WOW! I bet you did not know that. And I am sure our clients don't know it either. It is our responsibility to get the truth out to them.

In their quarterly reports S&P/Case-Shiller breaks out their data by price ranges as well, which is very helpful. Here is what I learned--

Homes priced under $212,570--

* Prices are down 6.8% in the last year.

* Prices are up 5.4% since March 2008

Homes priced between $212,571-$317,033

* Prices are down 4.8% in the last year

* Prices are up 4.2% since March 2008

Homes priced above $317,033

* Prices are down 5.4% in the last year

* Prices are up just 1.3% since March 2008

This data tells us that lower priced homes are peforming the best in the last 6 months, the 2nd and 3rd quarter. For the highest priced homes, the market appears to be softening in the last 6 months when compared to the previous 6 months. This is probably due to the difficulty of getting a mortgage as home prices rise above $439,000 (conforming loan amount of $417,000/95% LTV).

It would be great to see home prices this winter stay above March 2008 levels as this will be further proof that our market has hit bottom already.

A second good sign is that inventory levels are dropping which should help keep prices higher. I wish I knew the Days on Market numbers as that is a great forward looking indicators. So, real estate agents let me know what the trend is for DOM here in the Denver metro area.