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Mike is a Real Estate Specialist for Firelight at Highlands Ranch
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See interviews of Mike Bradley on MetroBrokersTV.com
Denver-area home prices not too bad Tuesday, December 30, 2008
It might sound odd to say that Denver area home prices aren't so bad when year-to-year they are down 5.2% on average, but that's the third "best" depreciation in the nation!
Here's the important thing to remember with that statistic: that's an average. It includes area's like the hard hit Green Valley Ranch neighborhood out by Denver International Airport where homes that originally sold for over $200,000 are now being bought by investors for under $100,000.
The key to real estate buying is the same as it's always been...Location, Location, Location! Real estate values are local so when an average figure is reported like this it's similar to saying all grapes on a vine are bad. There's good ones and bad ones.
Did you know that home prices in Golden are actually up 6.3%, Englewood is up 3.9% and Lone Tree is up 0.8%.
And while average prices are down slightly in Centennial (-3.5%), Highlands Ranch (-4.6%), Parker (-5.4%), and Littleton (-5.7%), they are nothing like the 17% decline in Denver nor the 17.9% decline in Fort Lupton!
Can You Really Catch the Bottom of the Market? Sunday, December 21, 2008
I received this video from Scott Mulvany at Cherry Creek Mortgage today and thought it valuable enough to post here. If you have about 6 minutes to watch it, and are currently waiting to purchase a home because you think the market is still going down, be sure to check it out. Very insightful.
Sometimes buyer's seek out homes that do not have Homeowners Associations (HOAs) to eliminate the additional expense that can accompany them. I personally favor HOAs and here's a great example of why:
I know of a very nice remodeled home in a very nice location for sale right now for $399,000. It was previously listed for $450,000 and a few months ago there was a buyer for the home that was willing to pay $450,000 except for one thing that prevented him from making the offer. The next door neighbor parked a very large motor home in the driveway for 6 months of the year. Even though the motor home was very nice, it was an eyesore in the neighborhood and the end result, the buyer did not make an offer on the home...at any price.
An HOA with a policy against motor homes could have eliminated this problem and the home would have sold for a good price thus bringing up the home values in the entire neighborhood. When you are talking about a fairly small monthly or annual fee to an HOA in exchange for possibly thousands of dollars in the re-sale value of your home, an HOA might just seem like exactly what you want.
Mortgage Interest Rates Be Dropping! Thursday, December 04, 2008
As if a 6.5 percent interest rate on a 30-year conventional loan wasn't good enough, in the past week we've seen a dramatic reduction and some mortgage brokers I know are quoting rates as low as 5.22 percent!!!
And I heard on the news this morning that congress is working on some economic stimulus plans that could cause mortgage interest rates on a 30-year conventional loan to drop to around 4.5 percent!
If you are thinking about buying a home here's how this could affect you. The lower the interest rate, the lower your monthly payment. For example, suppose you buy a home for $200,000 with a 6 percent mortgage. Your monthly payment would be around $1,200. In the same purchase with a 5 percent mortgage your monthly payment would be around $1,074 for a savings of $126 per month...that's over $1,500 per year!
It's the government's hope that lower mortgage rates will cause more buyers and help the real estate market recover sooner. Remember, as inventory begins to decrease we will eventually see an increase in home prices. Take advantage of the super low interest rates and depressed home prices now.
