Interesting…There seems to be a trend developing. New listings are down: see the trend below. What this means is in the last year we had many properties coming on the market so they could get a “good price” and move up. In other words the sellers said “If I can get this I will sell” so they hired a Realtor who agreed. Or, there were a spate of foreclosed properties, all of which end up in the local multiple listing service.
Now we see that sales have fallen off too (see below), so the strategy did not work and the Realtors who said “I will take your listing at any price” did someone a dis-service.
Or the foreclosures are not coming on the market as quickly as they did last year? Hmm.
It is even more interesting to note sales of properties in Douglas County, with the best schools in the state and 2 of the fasted growing communities being Castle Rock and Highlands Ranch. Both show specific increases over last year’s sales by 5.8% and .1% respectively. I dare say that the Parker area would have shown an increase if Elbert County was not included in that portion of the MLS. (I do have 2 horse property listings out in that part of the world BTW). Average SOLD prices were up 9.8% in The Castle Rock market, 4.7% in Highlands Ranch and 11.7% in the Parker area.
Now, while you are reading this you have to be a little concerned if you are thinking of Buying in this part of Denver. Someone once said that real estate is never as good a deal as it is today and it appears, despite the national news about our economy, and the regional newspaper coverage of the foreclosure glut, that right now is the time to invest in south Denver and Douglas County Colorado. It is my sincere belief that the next 12 months will see a major turn around in Denver real estate values and that will be led by the south metro suburbs.
To take advantage of this a buyer has to be realistic, looking at asking prices and sold prices plus concessions, to determine what a realistic offer would be for a seller. One has to walk in the others shoes before making an offer and you have to be ready to have the offer accepted. I did this exercise the other day and told the buyer 3% off asking is a good deal. 2% is fair. Well, we then went through all the comps and finally, he in his analytical way said, you are right. The hard thing to understand for the buyer is that when the seller takes 3% less on the asking, they are not also going to pay 2% in closing cost. That would be 5% and even if it is a bank owned or pre-foreclosure property, why would they, who are looking at the same data we are, and are bankers, take less than market value?
That brings me to banks and dealing with them…if you do not have to sell, you can do better. If you do not have to move on a particular date, you can do well. If you can remove ALL emotion from the purchase of your new home, and you can wait for an eternity for a response, you might do OK. But you will only do what the market is willing to bear, nothing more, unless there is a load of sweat equity involved. Some folks look at the word foreclosure like a deer in the headlights. Market value of a 250k home after 20k of fix up is still 250k. And if the bank agrees there is allot of fix up needed they would price the house at 235k. You will still pay market value, and get to spend your time fixing it up.
Enough rant…great time to buy in the south suburbs of Denver Colorado. Our real estate market is about to ignite!Lone Tree Colorado Highlands Ranch Littleton Castle Rock Centennial Englewood Parker co and metro Denver Colorado real estate property listings mls is available at www.DenverRelocation.com including searches for properties and homes.
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