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A Solution for Affordable Housing
Currently our state’s legislature is considering 10 different bills that relate to affordable housing. Unfortunately, every bill only deals with a symptom of the problem and does not deal with any of the causes of unaffordable housing. John McManus from Housing Wire wrote a great article last week on the myths and facts of affordable…
Is Rent Control a Solution for Affordable Housing?
Aldo Svaldi wrote a great story last week in the Denver Post on Senate Bill 19-225 that would end a statewide prohibition against local governments implanting rent control policies. This bill doesn’t provide rules on what can be done or can’t be done; instead the bill gives local municipalities the discretion to come up with…
OpenDoor Fee is Over 10%
Frank and Brian from the National RE Post received an OpenDoor offer from one of their subscribers Las Vegas in which OpenDoor’s service charge was over 10%!!! OpenDoor’s purchase offer was for $334k with a Service Charge of $35,070!!! OpenDoor claims that paying commissions of 6% or $20,040 is too much; but they charge an…
Don’t Let Zillow & OpenDoor Steal Your Clients
iBuyers like OpenDoor and Zillow are stealing your past customers! And not only are these iBuyers stealing from you, they are STEALING FROM YOUR CLIENTS!!! How? With offers that are below market value AND with higher fees than you or any other RE agent dare to charge. According to Frank and Brian their average fee…
We Now Have Bidding Battles, Not Wars
Here is March’s real estate report courtesy of SMDRA for our 7 county metro area. Buyers and sellers closed on 4,085 homes (attached and detached) last month, which was down 6.5% from a year ago. Attached sales dropped by 8.3% and detached sales dropped 5.7%. The number of new listings dropped 2.5% from last March…
Rent Has Increased by 82% this Decade
Aldo Svaldi wrote a great story in The Denver Post about the rental increases we have seen in metro Denver since 2010 using data from RealPage. Our median apartment rents have risen by 82% this decade from 2010 to the end of 2018. Median rents increased from $805 a month to $1462. This was the…
Financial News Update
The Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, the annual Core PCE, was unchanged in September at 2% while month over month saw a rise of 0.2%. Remember, the Fed has forecasted Core PCE to run near current levels through 2021. If that forecast is accurate, long-term rates like mortgages, can’t move too high. Personal Spending rose 0.4%…
A Very Strong Jobs Report
Our country added 250k new jobs in October which is an amazingly high number when you consider our unemployment rate is just 3.7%. It’s very difficult to create this many new jobs when there are so few unemployed people. The volatile Household Survey showed 600k more people were employed last month. Year over year wage…
What Caused Me to Cry Recently?
About a month ago Tamara and I talked with Nick our former foster son for just the second time this year. It was an amazing conversation with him as we both heard how much he has matured in the past 9 months and to hear his appreciation for what we did for him for 3+…
A Solution to Homebuyer’s Pain
What’s the #1 pain point for home buyers today? The monthly payment as interest rates have risen by 1% over the last year. So, here’s a solution for you that I can guarantee you that many of you have never thought of as this idea goes back over 20 years. It’s a seller paid…
Loan Changes for Investors
Freddie Mac just announced some new rules on mortgages for real estate investors. These rules go into effect March 1st. First, the borrower must own a primary residence to use rental income to qualify when buying a rental property. Second, the rental income can only offset the monthly PITI payment; it can’t be added to…
Welcome News for Homebuyers
The August Case-Shiller Index was released last week and it showed slowing price appreciation as prices only rose 5.8% in August from August 2017. Here in Denver our home price appreciation rate was down to 7.7%, down from the 8% increase we saw from July 2017 to July 2018. David Blitzer, who chairs this…
